JAPAN 

AND WORLD PEACE 



K.AWAKA.MI 



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I 



JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 



BOOKS BY KAWAKAMI 



American-Japanese Relations," 
New York, 1912. 

"Asia at the Door," 
New York, 1914. 

"Japan in World Politics," 
New York, 1917. 

"Japan and World Peacb." 
New York, 1919. 



JAPAN AND WORLD 
PEACE 



■> ^V" BY 

k/k/kawakami 

AtTTBOB OF '' JAPAK IN WOBLD POUTXOB ' 



Nfm fork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1919 

All rights reserved 






,^^ 



COPTEIGHT, 1919 

Bt the macmillan company 

Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1919. 



28 i9m 



!g)CI.A5257c2 



A^ P 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

OUR BELOVED NEPHEW 

SERGEANT ALFRED KRISTOFERSON 

WHO DIED A HEROIC ^EATH 

IN THE BATTLE OF THE ARGONNE FOREST 

OCTOBER FIFTEENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN 



"I beg to add another voice to echo the congratulatory speechei that 
have been made on the presentation of a document which is, perhaps, the 
most important document that has been compiled by man. The great 
leaders, with staunch purpose, have personified this great movement, a 
movement involving intricate problems of divers nations, and they 
deserve the gratitude of their fellow men for successfully piloting to this 
advanced stage a most effective instrument for the maintenance of the 
peace of the world. Their names will be written indelibly on the pages of 
history, and that will be the grateful acknowledgment of humanity for 
their labor." 

— ^Viscount Nobuaki Makino 
On the League of Nations 



PREFACE 

This little volume is an attempt to describe Japan's 
place in the League of Nations. I have tried to 
explain the aspirations and hopes, fears and misgiv- 
ings, which Japan will entertain imder the new world 
regime, as under the old. 

The foremost problem of Japan to-day is the popu- 
lation problem. An intelligent understanding of 
that question is essential to the appreciation of 
Japan's poKcies and activities. 

Intertwined with the population question is the 
matter of Japan's iron and coal supply. With her 
increasing population sealed up in a small archipelago, 
Japan sees the only means of solving the problem of 
overpopulation in the promotion of her industry 
and the expansion of her foreign trade. In a word, 
Japan's foremost desire to-day is to become a great 
industrial and trading nation. But in order to reahze 
this desire Japan must have coal and iron, two es- 
sentials of modern industry. Unfortunately, Japan's 
small territory has little of either in store. She is 
compelled to seek them in territories not too far 
from her home land. 

Here, in a nutshell, is the condition which furnishes 
the underlying motives as well as the impelling power 
to Japan's policies, internal and foreign. 



X PREFACE 

I have devoted a considerable space to Japan's 
relations with China, because those relations are most 
vital to the existence of the island nation. In speak- 
ing of the prevailing conditions in China, I have, 
in the past, endeavored to express myself with re- 
serve. But I have reluctantly come to the conclusion 
that the time has come when the world should be 
informed of the true situation. There is no use in 
evading the fact that China is utterly incapable of 
managing her own affairs, and that the civilized 
nations of the world must come to an agreement with 
a view to establishing an international guardianship 
for China. 

In concluding this preface, it is my duty as well 
as my great pleasure to acknowledge my deep obli- 
gation to Mr. D. S. Richardson, of Berkeley, Cali- 
fornia, who has read the manuscript with sympa- 
thetic interest. 

K. K. ICawakami. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I 
JAPAN'S PART IN THE WAR 

PAGE 

Why Japan entered the war — The alliance with England — The Grer- 
man menace in the Far East — Bismarck's policy in Asia — The 
Kaiser's picture of the Yellow Peril — General von Bemhardi 
on Japan and China — German intrigue against Japan at the 
end of the Chino-Japanese war — Germany responsible for 
the Russo-Japanese war — The Japanese campaign against 
Kiau-chow — Its far-reaching significance — Military operations 
against Kiau-chow — How Germany treated the Japanese — 
How Japan treated the Germans — Bushido the real cause of 
Japan's kindness to the enemy — Japan's naval operations 
against Germany — Japanese submarine destroyers in the Pa- 
cific — Japan's assistance to Russia — ^Japanese merchant vesseb 
used by allies — ^Japan's financial contributions 1 



Chapter II 

DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 

The effect of German defeat upon Japanese politics — The new cab- 
inet of Japan — Premier Hara, the "Commoner" of Japan — 
President Wilson on autocracy — Mr. Root on Japan — The dip- 
lomacy of autocracy — Dawn of modernism in Japan — The 
Oath of Five Articles — Advent of radical doctrines — Prince 
Ito and the Japanese constitution — The Mikado not an auto- 
crat but a ceremonial head — The Mikado and the Cabinet — 
The Mikado reigns but does not govern — The extension of 
suffrage the first requisite of democratising Japan — Labor un- 
ions in Japan — Freedom of speech — Socialism in Japan — Japan- 
ese socialists against the Russian war — Japan's ability to ad- 



XU CONTENTS 

PAGE) 

just herself to new conditions — Democracy retarded by Japan's 
constant struggle with aggressive Powers — ^The apprehension 
of Japanese advocates of liberalism 18 

Chapter III 

THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 

Baron Makino on the League of Nations — Japanese statesmen 
not in favor of raising the race issue — The race issue forced 
upon the envoys by popular clamor — Why the Japanese mis- 
imderstood Western sentiment — Mr. Wilson inspires the masses 
of Japan — Japan's population question — ^Japan's desire for 
expansion totally different from Germany's — Japan's real 
objective not free emigration — Japan not spokesman for all 
Asia — ^Why the Japanese are skeptical of the world league 
idea — ^Japan's disappointment at the Hague Court of Arbitra- 
tion — ^The West maintains double standards of justice 45 

Chapter IV 

JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 

Why the masses of Japan clamor for the Pacific islands — Japan's 
overpopulation the real cause for that clamor — ^Japanese emi- 
gration — ^Japan has no real colony — Resources of the South 
Pacific islands — Potash deposits valuable to rice culture in 
Japan — ^The Marshall Islands — The Caroline Islands — ^The 
islands under the League of Nations 63 

Chapter V 

JAPAN AND SIBERLA 

Foreign Minister Viscount Motono on Siberia — Japan confers 
with France and England on the chaos in Siberia — France 
suggests intervention — Russian views in favor of allied inter- 
vention — Bolshevik-German intrigue in Siberia — The Japanese 
press and the elder statesmen objected to Siberian interven- 



CONTENTS XIU 



tion — Ambassador Uchida on Bolshevism — American opposi- 
tion to intervention — Appearance of Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia 
— President Wilson changes his attitude — His statement of 
August 3, 1918 — Japan concurs with America — The Japanese 
statement — The failure of the Wilson policy — Unnecessary sac- 
rifices due to Mr. Wilson's delay — Japanese conduct in Si- 
beria — Foreign Minister Uchida's declaration on Russia — 
Japan withdraws her troops from Siberia — The disputed ques- 
tion of the Siberian railway — The American agreement with 
the Kerensky administration — An international control of the 
Siberian railway — ^The Monroe Doctrine, American and Japa- 
nese 72 



Chapter VI 

JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

The American proposal to annex Lower CaUfomia — ^The American 
agitation against Japanese enterprises in Mexico — How Japan 
faces it — A reflection upon American morals — The duty of the 
State Department to investigate the Mexican land project — 
Definition of the Monroe Doctrine — Governor Estaban on the 
annexation propaganda — General Aguirre on the foreign owner- 
ship of Mexican land — The Magdalene Bay Canard — How it 
was started — Senator Lodge's resolution — ^The Japanese in 
Mexico — The German propaganda in Mexico — ^Japan respects 
American policy in Mexico 

Chapter VII 

THE CHAOS IN CHINA 

Danger to foreigners in China — ^The North China Daily News on 
the Chinese situation — A British view of China's internal war- 
fare—The First and Second Revolutions— The Third Revolu- 
tion — ^The Fourth Revolution — Dr. Sun Yatsen and General 
Li Yung-ting — The situation in Yun-nan — President Wilson's 
letter to China's new President — MiUtary despotism of the 



XIV CONTENTS 

PAGE 

worst type — Military governors worse than feudal chiefs — 
Arbitrary seizure of railways by generals — Instances of political 
blackmail — ^Japan's move to end internal warfare in China 109 

Chapter VIII 

HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 

An interview with the leader of Southern Republicans — His views 
as to why China should not have helped the Entente Powers — 
A misrepresentation by a Chinese peace envoy — Yuan Shi- 
kai's imperial designs and his war policy — Japan checks Yuan's 
ambition — Japan and America advise China to declare war- 
Why China delayed the declaration of war — Factions fight 
over the war question — Southern republicans oppose the 
Cabinet's war policy — The war question plunges China into 
a civil war — General Chang restores the Manchu dynasty — 
The fall of General Chang — Southern Republicans still oppose 
the war policy of the Cabinet — The Cabinet declares war upon 
Germany — Liang Chi-chao's exposition of China's internal 
politics — China's motives in entering the war 125 

Chapter IX 

CHINA'S CONTROVERSY WITH JAPAN 

The attitude of the new Japanese cabinet towards China — Actions 
of the Chinese peace delegation — No secret treaties between 
Japan and China — Kirin forest and mine loan agreement — Pre- 
mier Tuan's explanation of the same agreement — Manchurian 
railway agreement — The Japanese Government's statement on 
the same — Shan-tung railway agreement — The Chino- Japanese 
military agreement — The Chinese Government's statement on 
the same — ^These agreements not proper subjects of discussion 
at the Peace Congress — China's extraordinary performances 
at the Peace Congress — The Japanese Premier explains Japan's 
attitude towards China — Japan has no objection to publishing 
agreements with China — Why not also discuss at the Peace 



CONTENT* XV 

PAQE 

Congress China's agreements with other nations? — China's 
real motives in opposing Japan — Discreditable tactics of the 
Chinese peace envoys 143 



Chapter X 

THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 

The Ishii-Lansing understanding — Self-preservation underlying 
motive of Japanese policy in China — Japan anxious to get iron 
and coal from China — Japan's precarious industrial structure — 
Japan's interest in the Han Yeh Ping Company — To solve her 
population problem Japan must become an industrial nation — 
The blimder of the "twenty-one demands" — The "group 
five" of those demands — The supply of arms to China — Foreign 
advisers to China — The Chino-Japanese treaties of May, 1915 
— ^Transformation of Manchuria under Japanese management 
— Dr. Martin on exterritorial rights in China — The fall of the 
Ok\ima Cabinet due to its failures in China — The Terauchi 
Cabinet and China — ^The Hara Cabinet's policy in China 160 

Chapter XI 

JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 

China's singular proposals at the Peace Congress — Her admisoion 
of liabilities — China's annual deficit — Financial difficulty main 
reason for her entrance into the war — Official corruption worse 
under the new regime — Examples of corruption — China's foreign 
indebtedness — Japan's share in the same — Japan's economic 
loans to China — Japan con5pelled by China to make financial 
advances — Japan's present financial policy in China defined by 
the Foreign Office — Wanted: An international supervision of 
China's finances — President Wilson advises American bankers 
to withdraw from China — Mr. Wilson reverses that advice — 
America's new financial policy in China 180 






JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

CHAPTER I 
JAPAN'S PART IN THE WAR 

Why Japan entered the war — The alliance with England — The German 
menace in the Far East — Bismarck's policy in Asia — The Kaiser's 
picture of the Yellow Peril — General von Bemhardi on Japan and 
China — German intrigue against Japan at the end of the Chino- 
Japanese war — Germany responsible for the Russo-Japanese war — 
The Japanese campaign against Kiau-chow — Its far-reaching 
significance — Military operations against Kiau-chow — How Ger- 
many treated the Japanese — How Japan treated the Germans — 
Bushido the real cause of Japan's kindness to the enemy — Japan's 
naval operations against Germany — Japanese submarine destroyers 
in the Pacific — Japan's assistance to Russia — Japanese merchant 
vessels used by allies — Japan's financial contributions. 

Japan made a modest contribution towards the 
winning of the war, and asks little or nothing at the 
Peace Congress. 

True, Japan proposed that the covenant of the 
League of Nations should contain a provision fore- 
stalling racial discrimination in future international 
dealings. But this proposal was made for the sake 
of principle rather than for Japan's own sake. For 
she believed it to be in perfect accord with the 
humanitarian ideals to which allied statesmen had 
pledged themselves during the war. 

1 



52 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

True also it is that Japan at first desired to retain 
the Marshall and Caroline Islands in her possession, 
provided, of course, other Powers were to hold the 
German colonies they had seized. But as soon as 
the mandatory system was suggested by President 
Wilson, Japan cheerfully consented to place them 
under the control of the League of Nations. 

As for Kiau-chow, the former German territory 
in China, Japan, as early as May, 1915, irrevocably 
pledged herself to restore it to China. 

Before entering into the discussion of what Japan 
expected from the Peace Congress and what her 
position under the new world regime will be, let us 
see what Japan did for the war. 

The reason for Japan's entrance into the war is 
two-fold. First, she was bound by her alliance with 
England to declare war upon Germany. And, 
secondly, she had long regarded Germany as a 
dangerous factor in the Far East, and had looked 
upon the German possessions in China as a perpetual 
menace to the peace of the Orient and to her own 
safety. 

Upon the details of the Anglo- Japanese Alliance we 
need not enter. We will only say that it was ob- 
viously England's right to call upon Japan for aid, 
while it was Japan's duty to respond to England's 
call. Read the Anglo- Japanese Treaty of Alliance 
carefully, and you will notice that wherever either 
high contracting party is attacked by a third Power 
the other high contracting party is required to come 



japan's part in the war 3 

to its assistance in the regions of the Far East. The 
treaty does not say "aggressive action in the Far 
East," but "aggressive action wherever arising." 
The state of affairs described in the treaty had cer- 
tainly come into existence by the time England 
asked for Japan's aid, and Japan could not shirk the 
responsibilities put upon her shoulders by the treaty. 

On August 3, that is, the day before England de- 
clared war. Sir Conyngham Greene, the British 
Ambassador to Japan, hurried back to Tokyo from 
his summer villa and immediately requested an 
interview with Baron Kato, the Foreign Minister. 
At this conference the British Ambassador informed 
Baron Kato that his Government was compelled 
to open hostilities against Germany and desired to 
ascertain whether Japan would aid England in the 
event of British interests in the Far East being 
jeopardized by German activities. Baron Kato 
answered that the question before him was so serious 
that he could not answer it on his own account. 

On the evening of the same day, Coimt Okuma con- 
vened a meeting of all the Cabinet members. Bearing 
the resolution of this meeting. Baron Kato, on August 
4, called upon the British Ambassador and told the 
latter that Japan would not evade the responsibili- 
ties which she had assumed in entering into alliance 
with England. 

At this time Japan did not expect to be called 
upon to declare war at once. But on August 7 the 
British Ambassador asked for an interview with 



4 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

Baron Kato and told the Foreign Minister that the 
situation had developed in such a manner as would 
oblige Japan's immediate entrance upon the war. 
On the evening of that day Premier Okuma re- 
quested the "elder statesmen" and his colleagues to 
assemble at his mansion. The conference lasted 
until 2 o'clock the next morning. Before it adjourned 
Japan's policy had been definitely formulated. 

Even without the obligations of an alliance with 
England, Japan would have welcomed an oppor- 
tunity to oust Germany from the Far East. To 
appreciate the intense feeling entertained by the 
Japanese against Germany, one must know some- 
thing of German policy in the Orient during the two 
decades before the war. 

The fundamental principle of German policy in 
the Orient was voiced by Prince Bismarck when he 
told Prince von Bulow: "In Russia there is a serious 
amount of unrest and agitation for territorial ex- 
pansion which may easily result in an explosion. 
It would be best for the peace of the world if the 
explosion took place in Asia, and not in Europe. 
We must be careful not to stand in the way, otherwise 
we may have to bear the brunt of it." 

In these few words the Iron Chancellor set forth 
Germany's fundamental policy in the Far East. 
The conversation took place towards the end of the 
"eighties" and in the "nineties" this policy began 
to show itself in German activities in Eastern Asia. 

There is not the shadow of a doubt that the prin- 



JAPAN S PART IN THE WAR 5 

ciple laid down by Bismarck has been closely followed 
by his successors and the Kaiser. It explains the 
raison d'etre of that historic picture of the "Yellow 
Peril" painted by the versatile German Emperor. 
It furnishes a key to the general attitude of Germany 
towards Japan. It shows why Germany seemed al- 
ways anxious to divert Russia's attention towards 
the Far East. Even in the anti-Japanese propaganda 
in America the Kaiser's hand was clearly seen. On 
the authority of Dr. A. N. Davis, for years physi- 
cian to the Kaiser, we now know that the malicious 
rumor that the Japanese are so dishonest as to ne- 
cessitate the employment of Chinese cashiers by 
Japanese banks, was also started by the Kaiser or 
his intriguing entourages. 

It would be scandalous to presume that the Kaiser 
was foohsh enough to believe that the Japanese, 
rallying under their sun flag all the fighting forces 
of Asia, would march across the continent and 
trample under foot any territory of Europe. Only a 
perverted mind could conceive such a case. In no 
other Hght than that of the fimdamental principle 
upon which Germany's Far Eastern policy is es- 
tablished can we account for the Kaiser's picture 
of the Yellow Peril. 

While, on the one hand, conspiring to divert 
Russian ambition to the far East, German diplo- 
macy was at work to prevent the establishment of 
harmonious relations between China and Japan. 
Says General Friedrich von Bernhardi: "The polit- 



6 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

ical rivalry between the two nations of the yellow 
race must be kept alive. If they are antagonistic, 
they will both probably look for help against each 
other in their relations with Europe, and thus enable 
the European Powers to retain their possessions in 
Asia." This frank utterance, coupled with the con- 
fession of Prince von Bulow, leaves no room to 
doubt that Germany's Far Eastern policy was based 
upon the theory that Asia must remain the "happy 
hunting ground'* of European nations. 

It was at the end of the Chino-Japanese war that 
the Kaiser's mailed fist was for the first time lifted 
against the Japanese. In the middle of April, 1895, 
Japan, after brilliant victories, concluded a peace 
treaty with China. On the day the treaty was 
signed at Shimonoseki between Prince Ito and Li- 
Hung-Chang, all Japan was celebrating the glorious 
termination of the war. 

Suddenly out of the blue came the report that Ger- 
many had approached Russia and France with a 
view to force the retrocession of the Liao-tung penin- 
sula which China had just ceded to Japan. The re- 
port was soon confirmed, and the whole country 
was stricken with grief and aflame with wrath. 
Never was Japan's honor so ruthlessly outraged. 

On^the morning of April 23rd the German, French, 
and Russian ministers at Tokyo deigned to present 
themselves, one after the other, at the Foreign De- 
partment, each bringing with him a note admonish- 
ing Japan for affronting the Powers by taking the 



japan's part in the war 



Liao-tung peninsula. The German "advice** was 
of the most peremptory nature, and the masterful, 
overbearing manner in which it was handed to the 
Foreign Department by the Kaiser's envoy is still 
a topic of occasional conversation among the Jap- 
anese. The German Minister brought two copies of 
the advice, one in German, the other in the Japanese 
language transcribed in Roman letters. 

The note was very brief and bluntly stated that 
the Japanese occupation of the Liao-tung peninsula 
was a menace to the Chinese capital and would 
jeopardize the peace of the Far East. " Therefore," 
it concluded, "the German Government advises the 
Japanese Government to abandon the idea of oc- 
cupying the territory." 

The original note even contained such a threaten- 
ing phrase as this — "Japan is weak, Germany is 
strong; the outcome of an armed conflict between the 
two countries is obvious." 

Japan was, forsooth, too weak not to heed the 
"advice." She gave up the Liao-tung peninsula with 
what grace and dignity she could. And behold ! only 
a few years later, Russia, encouraged and instigated 
by Germany, appropriated the whole territory of 
Manchuria, while Germany herself seized the terri-^ 
tory of Kiau-chow. With Manchuria and Korea. - 
dominated by the Czar, Japan had no alternative to 
preparing to fight Russia. Japan's titanic struggle ,^ / 
with Russia in 1904-5 was the inevitable aftermath \ 
of the German intrigue in and after 1895. Japan 



8 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

holds the Kaiser as much responsible as the Czar for 
the Manchurian war in which she sacrificed unnum- 
bered Hves and untold treasure. 

With this historical background before us, we can 
fully understand why Japan welcomed an oppor- 
tunity to drive Germany from the Far East. 

The campaign against the German territory of 
Kiau-chow, extremely small in scale as it was, was 
no easy task for Japan. The impecunious nation was 
still suffering from the financial burden caused by 
the Russian war. The Okuma Cabinet had come to 
power upon the promise to reduce taxation which 
had been increased in consequence of that war. It 
had also declared its intention of curbing the influ- 
ence of the military clique and of retrenching the 
expenditures of the army. All these promises had to 
be cast to the winds because of Japan's entrance into 
the war. The appropriation for the Kiau-chow ex- 
pedition alone amounted to $30,000,000, not to speak 
of the cost of the extensive naval operations required 
of Japan. 

The far-reaching significance of the Kiau-chow 
campaign will be the more clearly understood if we 
picture in our minds what would have happened, had 
-Japan decided to sit on the fence. Had she declined 
Ao declare war upon Germany, Russia would have 
had to keep large forces in Siberia; France would 
have been compelled to garrison Indo-China with 
several army corps, while Great Britain would have 
been forced to maintain in the Indian and Pacific 



JAPAN S PART IN THE WAR 9 

Oceans, for the protection of India, Australia, New 
Zealand and Canada, a fleet equal to that of Japan. 
Had German cruisers and gunboats, with the splen- 
did harbor of Kiau-chow as their base of operations, 
marauded in the Pacific and Indian oceans, the trans- 
portation of Australian and Indian forces to the 
scenes of war would have been well-nigh impossible,'"* '^ 

while British trade in those waters would have been ^ ^, 

completely paralyzed. With Japan's attitude uncer- 
tain, even the United States might not have felt safe in 
casting her lot with France and England. Under such 
circumstances, the situation in Europe would have be- 
come extremely difficult for the entente Powers. 

There is another important aspect of the Kiau- 
chow campaign which has escaped the serious con- 
sideration it deserves. Had Japan delayed her action 
against Kiau-chow, it was more than probable that 
the Germans would have raised a large army of 
Chinese in Shantung, captured the arsenal at Techow 
on the Tientsin-Nanking line, virtually seized the 
whole of that province, and thus compelled the 
Government at Peking to declare war upon the 
Entente Powers. In the state of disorganization in |i' 

which China found herself at that time, it was ob- ^| 

vious that such a German plan would have easily been 
put into practice. China would have had to accept 
the German yoke and been compelled to drive all 
British and French interests from the country. Only 
by Japan's prompt declaration of war upon Ger- 
many was such an eventuality prevented. 



10 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

When Japan declared war upon Germany, Captain 
Meyer- Waldeck, the commander of Kiau-chow, had 
at his disposal a force of some 13,000 men, of whom 
3,000 were German trained. The fortification was 
reputed to be one of the most formidable in the 
Orient. Within the harbor was a fleet of German and 
Austrian gunboats, though the cruisers had already 
left the port on a marauding cruise. 

Against this stronghold Japan sent 30,000 men 
under the command of Lieutenant-General Kamio. 
This force was joined by 1,200 British, 800 Wales 
Borderers, and 800 Indian troops, under the com- 
mand of General Bannardiston. 

On August 25 the first division of the Japanese 
forces landed at Kiau-chow, and by September 18 
the last contingent set foot on Chinese soil. 

On August 25 the Japanese fleet, assisted by Brit- 
ish warships, effected the blockade of the Bay of 
Kiau-chow. As the blockading fleet took position 
off Tsingtau, a typhoon swept the coast, and it was 
followed by a second and fiercer typhoon that scat- 
tered the ships. 

On land the Japanese advance was made extremely 
difficult by rain and flood. During that summer that 
section of China was flooded as it had not been 
flooded in sixty years previously. Rivers rose until 
whole valleys were inundated, while villages of mud 
houses melted into these lakes. All Shantung was a 
mud slough after the waters fell, retarding the land- 
ing and progress of the Japanese and British forces. 



japan's part in the war 11 

Through sloughs of mud the Japanese reached the 
shores of Kiau-chow Bay, and farther inland seized 
a station of the German railway line leading up three 
hundred miles to the provincial capital of Tsinan-fu. 
This railway was seized for all its length, because 
the German garrison had been using it in receiving 
war materials, food suppHes, reservists from all parts 
of China, and the returning crew of the Austrian 
cruiser which had been disarmed in early August. 

The general attack on the fortification began on 
October 22, and on November 7 the garrison sur- 
rendered to the beseiging forces. 

Throughout this campaign the barbarous German 
treatment of the Japanese in Germany presented a 
marked contrast to the civilized manner in which the 
Japanese treated Germans. 

Upon the arrival of the Japanese ultimatum in 
Berlin every Japanese in Germany was clapped into 
prison. The Japanese Embassy at Berlin was not 
allowed to communicate with them, nor could they 
get the list of their names. Some of these Japanese 
were even robbed of their bank deposits by the Kai- 
ser's Government. Of course, Japanese Government 
money, amounting to some $1,250,000, deposited 
in the Deutsche Bank was immediately confiscated. 

Meanwhile, how did the "heathen" Japanese treat 
the " Christian" Germans? Says the charming Amer- 
ican authoress. Miss Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore: 

"Simultaneously with the declaratioji of war the 
Minister of Home Affairs, alarmed by the savage 



X 



12 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

ways of war in Christian Europe, issued instructions 
concerning the protection of German subjects in 
Japan, securing the same protection of person, prop- 
erty, and honor as before, if they conducted them- 
selves without prejudice to the interests of Japan and 
her aUies. The Minister of Education warned 
teachers not to make impudent remarks that might 
arouse the animosity of young students, and urged 
them to show every kindness and facility to German 
teachers and students who might be called to the 
colors. The Chief of Police in Tokyo reminded 
people that, although the two Governments * had en- 
tered into hostilities for good reasons,' the people 
of the two countries as individuals should not act 
against each other in any way, and that the citizens 
of Tokyo should be more magnanimous than ever 
to those Germans who chose to remain; that they 
should not hold public meetings to inspire am'mosity, 
but always to be worthy of a civilized country. . . . 

"German Government money deposited in Japan 
was not touched, and the Deutche Bank in Yoko- 
hama continues unhindered in its management. No 
German property was injured, no German molested. 
No one's German governess, valet, or employee of 
any kind was interfered with or imprisoned. Ger- 
mans naively wrote their names in the Hsts for tennis 
tournaments, unconscious of the fact that not a 
British woman or child would tread the same court 
with them." 

This generous conduct of the Japanese towards 



japan's part in the war 13 

the Germans may be somewhat puzzHng to Western- 
ers. The superficial even brand it as "pro-German," \ 
forgetting that the Japanese were just as generous 
towards the Russians during the Manchurian war: "*" 
The Japanese explanation is totally different. Frorn 
time immemorial Bushido, the canon of knightly 
conduct, taught the Japanese to be kind to his 
enemy. If you have an opponent, says Bushido, 
beat him, use every effort to that end and spare 
yourself nothing, but once you have beaten him, then 
see to it that you make him your friend. Japan has 
beaten Germany in the Far East. Kiau-chow is in 
her hands, to be eventually turned over to China. 
Germany, as far as Japan is concerned, is now com- 
pletely innocuous; therefore, the Japanese turns to 
the German and says in effect: "Sir, I admire your 
courage. I for one have no further use for enmity, 
let us be friends." Of this national precept the 
Mikado's exhortation to soldiers and sailors is a fine 
example. He says: 

"The soldier and the sailor should esteem valor. 
Ever since the ancient times valor has in our country 
been held in high esteem, and without it Our sub- 
jects would be unworthy of their name. How then 
may the soldiers and the sailors, whose profession is 
to confront the enemy in battle, forget even for one 
instant to be valiant .^^ But there is true valor and 
false. To be incited by mere impetuosity to violent 
action cannot be called true valor. The soldier and 
the sailor should have sound discrimination of right 



14 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

and wrong, cultivate self-possession, and form their 
plans with deliberation. Never to despise an inferior 
enemy or fear a superior, but to do one's duty as 
soldier or sailor — this is true valor. Those who thus 
appreciate true valor should, in their daily intercourse, 
set gentleness first and aim to win the love and esteem 
of others. If you affect valor and act with violence, 
the world will in the end detest you and look upon 
you as wild beasts. Of this you should take heed." 

To return to Japan's part in the war. Her greater, 
though more quiet, participation than her land opera- 
tions against Kiau-chow was on sea. In the first 
year of the war, the Japanese navy took charge of the 
Eastern seas as well as the Pacific and Indian oceans. 
In this task Japan used a naval strength twice as 
large as the British Eastern and Australian Fleets 
prior to the war. When German cruisers were at 
large in the Pacific, Japanese men-of-war protected 
the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, and British 
Columbia, and kept safe the lanes of transportation 
from Hong-Kong to Vancouver, from Sydney and 
Singapore to Suez and Zanzibar. The great fieets of 
transports, which bore Australian and New Zealand 
troops to the various fronts of war, were usually 
convoyed by Japanese warships. It may also be 
safely said that without the co-operation of the 
Japanese fleet the hunting down of the Emden and 
the destruction of von Spec's ships off the Falkland 
Island at the hands of the British and Australian 
fleets would have been infinitely more diflScult. As 



japan's papt in the war 15 

early as December, 1915, Admiral Yashiro, the 
Japanese Minister of the Navy, declared in the 
House of Representatives that after the fall of 
Xiau-chow the Japanese squadrons, which were , , , _^ 
constantly employed in co-operating with the British 
fleet, totaled 225,000 tons. 

As soon as the Pacific and Indian oceans were 
cleared of German ships, Japan sent to the Mediter- 
ranean Sea a cruiser and three flotillas of submarine 
destroyers. While the British, French, and Italian 
squadrons were engaged in blockading the Adriatic 
Sea and the Dardanelles, these Japanese destroyers 
kept the routes of communication open from Gibral- | 

tar to Suez, from Marseilles to Alexandria. This 
was by far the most difficult and hazardous task 
imposed upon the Japanese navy during the war, and 
the spirit in which Japan undertook it was admirable, 
for the task was entirely outside the obligations of the 
alliance with England. 

Not the least important contribution which Japan 
made towards the successful execution of the war 
was the assistance she extended to Russia. In 
March, 1916, Japan turned over to the Russian Navy 
two battleships, Sagami and Tango, and an armored 
cruiser. Soya, In the early stage of the war Japanese 
ships transported a contingent of Russian soldiers 
from the Manchurian port of Darien to the Western 
front. But it was with munitions that Japan helped 
Russia most. As early as November, 1915, two 
Japanese arsenals were incessantly at work producing 



16 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

immense quantities of munitions exclusively for 
Russia. Of the millions of men Russia had mobilized 
at jthat time, only one-third was armed, and she had 
asked Japan to arm the rest. In response to the 
"* Russian appeal, Japan invoked all her industrial 
resources, employing every available mill and factory 
throughout the country. In meeting the Russian 
demand Japan had to turn away orders from China, 
her chief and permanent market. 

In the single year of 1915 Japan supplied Russia 
with munitions to the value of $100,000,000. Of 
rifles alone Japan shipped no less than 750,000, a 
number suflBcient to arm fifty-two divisions. Upon 
the fall of Warsaw in August of that year, Japan 
redoubled her energies in producing arms and muni- 
tions for Russia. Without this prodigious effort on 
the part of Japan, Alexieff could not have conceived 
or Brusiloff carried out the superb offensive which 
began on June 4, 1916. 

Nor was it the Russians alone whom Japan sup- 
plied with arms. Even Kitchener's armies received 
rifles from her. The British navy, too, secm-ed guns 
from Japanese arsenals. 

When Russia completely collapsed with the advent 
of Bolshevism, Japan, in co-operation with the United 
States, dispatched a contingent of forces into Siberia 
where released German prisoners, hand-in-glove with 
the Bolsheviki, were creating general disorder. This 
particular aspect we shall discuss at length in another 
chapter. 



\^ 



japan's part in the war 17 

In addition to naval assistance to her allies, Japan 
placed at their disposal a large fleet of merchant 
vessels. In April, 1918, she agreed to turn over to 
the United States sixty-six ships aggregating 514,000 
tons. Of that number twenty -four ships, with a total' 
tonnage of 150,000, were immediately chartered by 
the American Shipping Board. In this transaction 
the Japanese Government had to pay Japanese ship 
owners $9,000,000, representing the difference be- 
tween the inter-allied charter rates and the rates 
paid by the Shipping Board. Even before this agree- 
ment was made no less than fifty Japanese steamers 
had been chartered by various foreign governments 
and individuals. 

Japan's financial contribution to the winning of the 
war must perforce be small, for she is a poor nation. 
Yet her loans to England amount to $265,000,000. 
To France she advanced $77,500,000 and to Russia 
$127,000,000. To this should be added $110,000,000, 
representing Japanese foreign loan bonds and com- 
pany debentures redeemed in foreign markets. 

I have described Japan's part in the great war not 
in a spirit of boastfulness, for her role was certainly 
a modest one. My only intention is to put on record 
what contributions Japan was privileged to make 
within her limited means, hoping that the unbiased 
historian of the war will not be reluctant to take 
cognizance of such contributions. 






CHAPTER II 
DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 

The effect of German defeat upon Japanese politics — The new cabinet of 
Japan — Premier Hara, the "Commoner" of Japan — President 
Wilson on autocracy — Mr. Root on Japan — The diplomacy of 
autocracy — Dawn of modernism in Japan — ^The Oath of Five 
Articles — Advent of radical doctrines — Prince Ito and the Japanese 
constitution — The Mikado not an autocrat but a ceremonial head — 
The Mikado and the Cabinet — ^The Mikado reigns but does not 
govern — The extension of suffrage the first requisite of democratising 
Japan — Labor unions in Japan — Freedom of speech — Socialism in 
Japan — Japanese socialists against the Russian war — Japan's ability 
to adjust herself to new conditions — Democracy retarded by Japan's 
constant struggle with aggressive Powers — The apprehension of 
Japanese advocates of liberalism. 

The defeat of autocratic Germany at tlie hands of 
democratic allies has had a salutary influence upon 
the political tendency of the Mikado's empire. It 
has dealt a severe blow to the worshippers of "Kul- 
tur" and the admirers of German efficiency. With 
the disillusionment of the Germanophile came the 
universal revival of faith in the ideals and traditions 
of democratic nations. 

Had German arms emerged victorious from the 
Herculean combat, its effect upon Japan's political 
ideals would have been unfortunate. It would have 
strengthened the belief of the militarists that the 
ideals of disarmament and of universal peace were 

18 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 19 

nothing but a golden dream impossible of realiza- 
tion. It would have accentuated the skeptical at-* 
titude of the reactionaries towards democracy, and 
retarded the progress of Kberalism in Japan for at 
least a decade or two. 

It seems not a mere coincidence that the inagura- 
tion of a liberal cabinet at Tokyo came simultane- 
ously with the decline of Germany's military prowess. 
WTien the Terauchi Cabinet, generally accredited 
with conservatism, was ready to resign in September, 
1918, Marquis Okuma, for many years identified 
with the liberal movement in Japan, informed the 
Emperor that war had brought a great change in 
the sentiments of the people, as it had widened the 
gulf between the wealthy classes and the masses. 
This, he said, created a dangerous tendency which if 
ignored might undermine the social foundations of 
the empire. Thus Marquis Okuma urged the inaug- 
uration of a liberal cabinet capable of appreciating 
the desires and aspirations of the lower classes. In 
asking Takashi Hara, the "commoner of Japan," 
to organize a new ministry, the Emperor was un- 
doubtedly influenced by the wise counsel offered by 
the "Grand Old Man," as Marquis Okuma is fa- 
miharly called. 

The Hara Cabinet came into power on Septem- 
ber 29, 1918. It is avowedly a party cabinet, as eight 
of its ten members are closely identified with the Sei- 
yu-Kai, the liberal party. As soon as it was organ- 
ized, the new Cabinet made it plain that it intended 



20 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

to abolish anachronistic practices of the bureau- 
cracy. Under bureaucratic cabinets the offices of 
ministers and vice-ministers, as well as those of 
other high officials, were like sanctums, inaccessible 
to common people. The Hara Cabinet has abolished 
this usage, and opened the doors of those sanctums 
to all persons who may have plausible reason to 
interview cabinet members. It has also dispensed 
with the personal guards who used to be attached to 
every minister under the previous cabinets. The 
custom of guarding cabinet members with officers 
in plain clothes originated in those turbulent days 
of the early period of the new regime, when high 
officials were subject to frequent attacks at the 
hands of assassins. There is no reason why this cus- 
tom should be continued indefinitely. In abolishing 
it the Hara Cabinet responds to the popular tend- 
ency of the present age. The new cabinet also an- 
nounces its intention to deviate from the policy of 
reticence which has characterized its bureaucratic 
predecessors. In short, the "open door" is the 
avowed policy of Premier Hara in the administra- 
tive practices of his cabinet. 

These changes may appear to be of small conse- 
quence. But as an indication of the spirit of the 
times they are of great importance. If the new liberal 
cabinet lives up to its professed principles, and carries 
out its promise to extend the scope of franchise, 
guarantee the freedom of speech, and remove the 
restriction hitherto put upon the activities of or- 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 21 

ganized labor, it will have proved itself worthy of 
the first hberal government of Japan. 

A study of this liberal tendency in Japan, as well 
as the fundamental principles of her government, is 
doubly interesting in view of President Wilson's re- 
peated assertions in defense of democratic ideals. 

In his historic "war message" of April 2, 1918, the 
President declared that the "world must be made safe 
for democracy," that "a steadfast concert of peace 
can never be maintained except by a partnership 
of democratic nations," and that "no autocratic 
government could be trusted to keep faith with it 
or observe its covenants." 

As far as Japan's willingness to observe foreign 
treaties is concerned, there can be no two opinions. 
She has never entered into any agreement, to which 
she did not, with all sincerity, intend to adhere. No 
one, familiar with Japan's relations with foreign 
governments, can impeach her with lack of sincerity. 
On this particular point I quote an American au- 
thority who is much better qualified to speak than I 
am. Says Mr. Honorable Elihu Root, in one of his 
recent pubhc addresses: — 

"For many years I was very famifiar with our own 
department of foreign affairs, and for some years I 
was especially concerned in its operations. During 
that time there were many difficult, perplexing and 
doubtful questions to be discussed and settled be- 
tween the United States and Japan. . . . During 
all that period there never was a moment when the 



%% JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

government of Japan was not frank, sincere, friendly, 
and most solicitous not to enlarge but to minimize 
and do away with all causes of controversy. . . . 
And there never was a more consistent and noble 
advocacy of peace, of international friendship and of 
real, good understanding in the diplomacy of this 
world than was exhibited by the representatives 
of Japan — ^both here and in Japan — during all those 
years in their relations to the United States. I wish 
for no better, no more frank and friendly intercourse 
between my country and any other country, than 
the intercourse by which Japan, in those years, il- 
lustrated the best qualities of the new diplomacy 
between nations as distinguished from the old di- 
plomacy as between rulers." 

One of the peculiarities of an autocratic country 
is found in the inclination of its sovereign to indulge 
in diplomatic intrigue. An autocratic ruler, be he a 
Kaiser or a Czar, an Emperor or a King, exchanges 
with other autocratic rulers personal emissaries and 
letters, interfering with the international affairs 
of his country which should be conducted through 
duly instituted diplomatic channels. It is indeed 
the "personal" diplomacy of the autocratic monarchs 
of Europe which complicated the international situa- 
tion not only in Europe but also in the Far East. 
Of such reprehensible practices of autocracies, the 
personal message exchanged between the Kaiser 
Wilhelm and the Czar Nicholas afford a most con- 
spicuous example. The Mikado of Japan has never 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 23 

SO much as attempted to meddle with the diplo- 
matic affairs of the empire. He has never exchanged 
with any foreign sovereign any note or mission bear- 
ing upon the international relations of his country. 
The diplomacy of Japan is always conducted by 
her Foreign Minister who is in the cabinet organized 
with due respect for public sentiment. 

So much for Japan's willingness to keep faith with 
foreign Governments. Now we come to the more 
essential part of our discussion — namely, the prin- 
ciples of the Japanese Government as they affect 
Japan's internal condition. 

It is plain that neither Mr. Wilson nor the Ameri- 
can people are concerned with the external forms of 
foreign governments. In form England and Italy 
are monarchical as much as Germany and Austria. 
Yet no one hesitates to accept England and Italy 
as America's partners in war and in peace. What is 
important is not the form of a government, but the 
principles by which that Government is guided 
in the administration of the affairs of the state. 
That Japan is ruled by an emperor is, in itself, of 
small consequence to us. What concerns us is not 
the name but the reality of the power that governs 
the people of Japan. 

Among the Japanese themselves opinion is sharply 
divided as to the fimdamental principles of their 
government. The conservative elements advance 
the theory that the Mikado enjoys absolute author- 
ity — a theory dangerously approaching the sinister 



1- 



24 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

doctrine of the divine origin of the ruler. As op- 
posed to this principle the liberals try to interpret 
the constitution much as Englishmen would interpret 
their constitution. Wide as the difference between 
the two schools is, they agree on one point — that 
the foundation of Japan's constitutional principles 
is the "Oath of Five Articles" proclaimed by the 
Mikado in 1868. 

But before describing this Oath of Five Articles, I 
must dwell upon the historical antecedents leading up 
to the proclamation of that Oath. 

Soon after the Western nations began to knock at 
Japan's doors, the farsighted men of the country 
became fully conscious of the need of co-operation 
between the government and the people. In 1866 
Shonan Yokai, a scholar with unusual vision, sug- 
gested to the Shogun a radical change of government. 
"At a time of extraordinary transformation such as 
to-day," he said, "I believe it most opportune to 
institute a deliberative assembly, the upper house of 
which shall be composed of civil and military nobles, 
while the lower house shall consist of able men se- 
lected from among the people." 

At that moment the Shogun, the military magis- 
trate, was still in power. With the Mikado holding 
nominal sovereignty, Japan had a dual government. 
The abolition of this anomalous system was of the 
greatest importance, if Japan was to attain the much 
desired end of national unity. Yodo Yamanouchi, 
one of the most powerful feudal lords of the time, in 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 25 

advising the Shogun to surrender his powers to the 
Mikado, urged the estabhshment of the imperial 
regime upon a new basis. "I beseech you," he said, 
"to follow the just and rational course, and by the 
co-operation of all the people, to bring about a change 
in the form of national government." 

When Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the last of the Sho- 
guns, inspired by patriotic motives, voluntarily de- 
cided to resign his oflSce, he addressed to the Mikado 
a remarkable memorial in which he said: 

"It is earnestly believed by your servant that the 
interests of the country may be best advanced and 
its position best maintained among the nations of 
the world, by the awakening of public opinion and 
by the patriotic and unanimous co-operation of all." 

In accepting the Shogun's resignation and assum- 
ing himself the reins of government, the Mikado pro- 
claimed to his subjects that it was his "will to estab- 
lish the new government on the basis of the first 
emperor Jimmu, and to share his fortune with all 
the people by having each contribute towards the 
fair and proper discussion of public affairs without 
any distinction of civil or military profession." 

These antecedents were soon followed by the Oath 
of Five Articles which definitely committed the coun- 
try to the adoption of a constitutional government. 

This historic "Oath" was sworn by the late Em- 
peror Mutsubito before the solemn and great assem- 
blage of all the Court nobles and feudal chiefs in 
1868, when the country had just awakened from the 



26 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

lethargy of seclusion. The five articles of the Oath 
read as follows: 

"1. Public councils shall be organized, and all 
governmental affairs shall be decided by public 
opinion. 

"2. All classes shall with one heart devote them- 
selves to the advancement of national interests. 
. "3. All civil and military oflScials, as well as com- 
mon people, shall be allowed to realize their aspira- 
tions. 

"4. All absurd customs of former times shall be 
abolished, and justice and equity, as they are univer- 
sally recognized, shall be followed as a basis of action. 

"5. Knowledge shall be sought throughout the 
world, and thus place the empire upon more solid 
foundations." 

The direct occasion for this remarkable proclama- 
tion was the advent of the Black Ships, those mon- 
strous leviathans from the West threatening the 
coasts of Japan. Confronted by the danger of for- 
eign domination, the far-seeing leaders, who had been 
assisting the Mikado considered it imperative to 
abolish the caste system, raze the political barriers 
which had separated the various classes from one 
another, and thus mold the country into one harmon- 
ious whole. They believed this reform to be the 
first requisite of national efficiency, for no nation 
could become efficient unless its individual members 
were assured preferment commensurate to their re- 
spective abilities and aspirations. They saw that. 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 27 

unless the people were allowed a voice in the manage- 
ment of public affairs, their true patriotism could 
not be awakened. Thus they recognized, though in 
a vague, unconscious, undefinable way, the neces- 
sity of a representative government as the base for 
national solidarity. There is no doubt that the men 
who were responsible for the Oath were absolutely 
sincere in their belief in popular representation in 
the government, because they were men who had 
sprung from the lowest rank of the samurai, the intel- 
lectual middle class which was instrumental in effect- 
ing the transformation of modern Japan. 

In the wake of the new era radical doctrines of all 
schools of Europe and America made their appear- 
ance in Japan. Montesquieu and Rousseau, Ben- 
tham and Mill, and even Robespierre and Mirabeau 
became popular figures among the political students 
of Japan. The theory of "social contract," and even 
the doctrine that the government was a "necessary 
evil" found responsive readers. The country wit- 
nessed a plethora of literature in the form of trans- 
lations of books written by well-known exponents of 
radicalism in England and France. The Declaration 
of Independence was hailed with enthusiasm by the 
young liberals of Nippon. The names of Washington 
and Lincoln were on the lips of every student. It 
seemed as though the country was plunging head- 
long into the yet imexplored field of democracy. 
Lured by the charms of political theories which had 
so suddenly dawned upon them, the young radicals 



28 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

seemed determined to emulate the hazardous yet 
brilliant careers of the men who had played leading 
parts in the revolutions in France and England. 

Alarmed by this radical tendency, those occupying 
responsible positions in the government saw the wis- 
dom of a conservative policy, and tried to slacken 
the pace of political reform. Even those who drafted 
the imperial Oath of Five Articles reacted against 
this unforseen turn which the course of events began 
to take. As the authorities became more conserva- 
tive the ardor of the agitators for reform seemed to 
become more intense. A collision between the two 
was the inevitable outcome. Soon there were riots 
and uprisings and bloodshed in different parts of the 
empire. It was significant that some of the men who 
took part in the movement for parliamentary govern- 
ment were not irresponsible young agitators, but 
publicists who had occupied various governmental 
positions. 

By 1881 the popular demand for constitutional 
government had become so irresistible that the Gov- 
ernment was compelled to issue an imperial edict 
promising to grant the wish of the people in nine 
years. In the intervening period the Government 
was to investigate the constitutions of Western coun- 
tries, and draft an instrument best suited to the con- 
ditions of Japan. Unfortunately, the late Prince Ito, 
who in 1882 was sent abroad to study foreign political 
systems, was influenced by the German idea of gov- 
ernment, and in drafting a constitution for his coun- 



1 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 29 

try, preferred to follow the German pattern rather 
than the Anglo-Saxon conception of democracy. j\ 

Thus the Constitution promulgated in 1889 con- / ^ 
tains the article that "the emperor is sacred and in- 
violable." If this provision were nothing more than 
a historical fiction or tradition reduced to writing, no 
harm would follow. As a matter of fact that is what 
it amounts to. It is one of those fictions to which no^ 
one pays much attention. No Japanese, in spite of 
all the revolutionary agitations of the earlier period 
of the New Japan, really desires to abolish the 
imperial dynasty. On the contrary, the people are 
appreciative of the magnanimity which has char- 
acterized the deeds of successive emperors, and 
entertain love and respect for the imperial house. 

The late Prince Ito, in his "Commentaries on the 
Constitution of Japan," tells us: 

"The Emperor is Heaven-descended, divine and 
sacred; he is preeminent above all His subjects. He"^ \/.^. 
must be reverenced and is inviolable. He has indeed * ■ 
to pay due respect to the law, but the law has no 
power to hold him accountable to it." 

To the western critic such utterances must be in- 
comprehensible Even to the Japanese they are not 
comprehensible. Most Japanese do not care to 
scrutinize such dogmas concerning the Imperial 
House, because they know that they can afford to 
let them alone as long as nobody attempts to put 
them into practice. The Emperor of Japan, though 
absolute in theory, is, in practice, anything but an 



30 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

autocrat. From an early stage of our history it was 
the custom of the emperor to entrust wise men with 
tl^e affairs of the state. As early as the beginning of 
-^he seventh century the Constitution of Prince 
Shotoku contained the following provision: 

"The duty of men in the government must be 
assigned according to their capacity. When in- 
telligent men serve the state, the people are happy; 
but when the unintelligent are in office, calamities 
ensue. If wise officers are chosen, public affairs are 
well managed, the community is free from anxiety, 
and prosperity prevails." 

This provision appears in the Japanese constitu- 
tion issued by Prince Shotoku in the year 604 of the 
Christian Era. From that time the spirit of that 
constitution was observed by successive emperors. 
In the course of time the administrative power of the 
state passed almost entirely into the hands of the 
-ministers. Thus the Mikado of Japan, like the con- 
stitutional King of England, became the mere 
ceremonial head of the state, preserving for himself 
only the mystic sublimity of the sovereign. This 
peculiar position occupied by the Emperor is well 
described by a Japanese scholar. Dr. Y. Uyehara, in 
these words: 

"The removal of the emperor from the active 
sphere of government placed him beyond popular 
censure and criticism. Whatever errors and blunders 
the Government committed, the ministers of state 
alone were blamed; and it was tacitly admitted that 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 31 

*the emperor can do no wrong to his subjects.' Thus 
he was sanctified, his dignity enhanced, and the 
reverence and affection for him increased, so that in 
the minds of the Japanese masses he appears as a 
* Mystical Sacred Being.'" 

When, therefore. Prince Ito told us that the 
Emperor was "heaven-descended and sacred," he 
simply harped upon the traditional conception of the 
Mikado prevailing among the masses of Japan from 
time immemorial. Certainly he did not expect the 
Japanese of these modern times to accept, at its face 
value, the obsolete doctrine of the divine origin of 
the Mikado. Perhaps Prince Ito would have ap- 
pealed to the loyalty of the people more effectively, 
had he been more sensible and told the people that 
the Emperor, farsighted and magnanimous, had 
willingly accepted the will of the people and granted 
them the constitution, voluntarily binding himseK 
to observe its provisions as well as all laws that might 
be enacted in accordance with it. As a matter of 
fact the intellectuals of Japan never paid serious 
attention to Prince Ito's dogmatic assertions con- 
cerning the Mikado, because they were absolutely 
confident that those assertions were set at naught by 
the practical working of the constitution. In other 
words, they were permitted to pass, because they 
were harmless. 

It is clear that the presence of the Mikado in the 
body politic of Japan is no impediment to the 
progress of democracy in that country. It has al- 



32 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

ready been shown that the position of the Mikado 
in the Japanese poHtical system is similar to that of 
the Xing in the pohtical world of England rather 
than to that of the Kaiser in the German or Prus- 
sian political system. This leads us to an inquiry 
into the relationship between the Mikado and the 
Cabinet, and that between the Cabinet and the 
people. 

Whatever be the interpretation of the Japanese 
constitution on the part of the conservative school, 
the Cabinet, acting as the representative of the 
Emperor, is, as a matter of fact, responsible to the 
people. No cabinet, which is not approved by the 
people represented by the Parliament can remain in 
power. If such a Cabinet clings to power on the 
plea that it enjoys the confidence of the Mikado, it 
will soon find itseK in difficult straits, because the 
people are quick to see an effective weapon for attack 
in the Cabinet's impudence in "dragging his Majesty 
into politics." Consequently, it has already become 
customary among statesmen and politicians in 
Japan not to invoke the aid of the Emperor in a 
political crisis, because such a step is bound to en- 
danger the safety of the Imperial Household. 

Notwithstanding the provisions of the Constitu- 
tion, the Mikado, like the King of England, "reigns 
but does not govern." It is the Cabinet which rules 
in lieu of the Emperor, and which assumes all respon- 
sibilities for the administration of the affairs of the 
state. The Cabinet is, so to speak, the safety valve 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 33 

between the Emperor and the people. Unless that 
safety valve works to attain the purpose for which 
it is provided, the permanent security of the Imperial 
Household cannot be guaranteed. Constitutional 
theorists of Prince Ito's school may assert that the 
Cabinet is responsible to the Emperor, and not to the 
people, but this is a legal quibble which cannot be 
sustained in the light of the practical working of our 
Constitution. The Constitution itself owes its 
inception to the will of the people, though its promul- 
gation took the form of an imperial gift. Had not 
the people of Japan awakened to the need of a 
representative government and agitated for the 
adoption of such a government, the constitution 
would not have been promulgated, at least as soon 
as it was issued. In other words, the Japanese con- 
stitution, like those of other countries, was wrested 
by the liberty-loving people from an unwilling 
government. 

It is highly fortunate that, since the establishment 
of her constitutional government, Japan has had 
emperors who have never attempted to force their 
ideas upon the Cabinet or the Diet. They have had 
the wisdom to see that it is safest to keep aloof from 
politics. To be sure, the Emperor exercises potent 
influence upon the affairs of the state, but whatever 
he does is done with subtility and moderation, avoid- 
ing discord and creating harmony. If his advisers 
and ministers do not misunderstand or misinterpret 
the true desire of their imperial master, and refrain 



34 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

from doing, in his name, what he himself never 
thinks of doing, the imperial regime will prove no 
obstacle to the wholesome development of democracy 
in Japan. 

From what I have said it may be inferred that 
Japan is on a fair road to democracy. Whatever may 
be said by reactionaries, this is an incontrovertible 
fact. Even Prince Ito, if he were to rise from his 
grave today, would admit it. The simple fact that 
she has a constitution is, in itself, a refutation of the 
fictitious theory of the divine right of the sovereign, 
because a constitution is the tacit, if not explicit, 
recognition of the rights of the people. Japan could 
not, even if she would, adopt Western instruments of 
democracy, such as modern industrial system, high- 
power machinery, compulsory education, free press, 
local assemblies, and a parliament, and, at the same 
time, reject the political theories of democracy. The 
task is impossible. The time will come when her 
statesmen will have to look the question squarely in 
the face, and make sincere efforts to inaugurate an 
age of enlightened liberalism, if they are to forestall 
the dangerous outbursts of unwholesome radicalism 
which must inevitably proceed from minds cramped 
by repressive measures. 

In order to democratize Japan the first task which 
should be undertaken by her is the extension of 
suffrage among the populace. At present the suffrage 
is confined to male citizens above twenty-five years 
of age who pay a direct national tax of not less than 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 35 

ten yen, or five dollars.* The property qualification, 
low as it is, denies franchise to a large portion of the 
population. The present percentage of franchise- 
holders is a little over 28 for each 1,000 of its popula- 
tion. In the past such restriction of suffrage may 
have been justified upon the ground that the masses 
had not been suflSciently educated to employ the 
political privilege to the advantage of the country. 
Now that Japan has had thirty years of training in 
representative government, and that the people are, 
in increasing numbers, enjoying the benefits of 
modern education, the removal of property qualifica- 
tions will entail no pernicious effect upon politics. 

Political democracy must precede economic democ- 
racy. By economic democracy I mean a state of 
society in which the right of workingmen to organize 
unions is recognized, — in which the welfare of the 
so-called lower classes is protected and promoted by 
the laws enacted by the representatives of the people. 
Unless the masses are permitted to express their will 
through legislative channels, measures for social 
reform cannot be inaugurated. 

Once universal suffrage is adopted the proletariats 
of Japan will have an effective organ through which 
they will be enabled to express their desires and 
aspirations. Not until then will the labor organiza- 
tion in Japan be founded upon secure base. True 

♦Since this chapter was written, the Hara Cabinet has revised the 
election law, lowering the tax to be paid by franchise-holder to three 
yen. This will make the percentage of franchise-holders about 60 for 
each 1,000 of the population. 



36 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

it is that even at present the organization of trade 
unions is permitted by law in Japan — at least we 
have no law which prevents workingmen from form- 
ing unions. As a matter of fact, Japan has seen, in 
the past score of years, the inauguration of many 
labor organizations. The trouble lies in the fact that 
the authorities are inclined to employ their power in 
such a manner as would render the activities of 
trade unions extremely difficult. This is especially 
true, when organized labor resorts to strike in its 
effort to enforce its demands. 

The extension of suffrage among the masses Is 
likewise essential to the freedom of speech. Not 
until the populace are allowed a voice in the enact- 
ment of laws, will the freedom of speech be securely 
established. Under the present election system in 
Japan, restricting the franchise to certain property 
holders, it is small wonder that laws cannot be 
adopted guaranteeing absolute liberty with regard 
to public expression of views. That the Japanese and 
the Japanese press enjoy the liberty to discuss cur- 
rent political or social problems is not enough. They 
must enjoy freedom to discuss, even advocate, any 
doctrine, however radical it may be. To throttle, 
for instance, the advocacy of socialism is ridiculous. 
The authorities seem to fear that socialism will 
undermine the security of the Imperial Household. 
They close their eyes to the obvious fact that among 
the monarchs of Europe the King of England en- 
joys, perhaps, the greatest security, in spite of rapid 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 37 

growth of socialism in his country. Given fair educa- 
tion, accompanied by a sense of responsibihty among 
the populace, unfettered freedom of discussion is the 
safest course to adopt on the part of any goveiai- 
ment. 

To some Japanese statesmen Socialism is a night- 
mare. To the oflScers of law in particular Socialism 
is synonymous with "dangerous thought." Indeed 
"dangerous thought" is the oflBcial term for So- 
cialism. 

In 1901 Japan, for the first time, saw the advent 
of a Social Democratic Party. The main features of 
the platform of that pioneer party were these: 

1. The reahzation of the ideal of universal brother- 
hood. 

2. Universal disarmament. 

3. The abolition of class distinctions. 

4. Public ownership of land and capital. 

5. Public ownership of the means of transporta- 
tion and communication. 

6. Equal distribution of wealth. 

7. Equal distribution of political rights. 
Scarcely had the first Social Democratic Party in 

Japan seen the light of day when the Government 
ordered its immediate suppression. Yet the fight 
that was once kindled could not be extinguished in 
such an arbitrary manner. It was evident that 
Socialism had come to Japan to stay. Whether or 
not that doctrine was permitted to express itself 
through party platform, the people of Japan began 



3» JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

to take keen interest in it. The very suppressive 
measures directed against the Social Democratic 
Party seemed to awaken and provoke public interest 
in the ideals of Socialism. 

When the Russo-Japanese war became imminent 
in 1903, the Socialists of Japan, though not organized 
in a political party, lifted their voice against the war. 
They held anti-war meetings. They gave public 
lectures in denunciation of the war. Their weekly 
organ "The Proletariat" published vehement arti- 
cles, asserting that the war would infinitely increase 
the suffering of the poor and the working class, no 
matter which side might win. Even when the 
Japanese army was locked in deadly combat with 
the Russian soldiers, the Socialist organ continued 
its fight against the war. We cannot but admire the 
courage with which the Japanese Socialists defended 
the principles to which they had consecrated their 
lives. And yet, when we look at the situation through 
the perspective of the years that have gone by, we 
cannot help wondering whether the valiant stand 
they had taken against the Russian war was not a 
serious blow to the wholesome development of 
Socialism in Japan. During the critical years from 
1903 to 1905 the whole population of Japan, with the 
solitary exception of a handful of SociaKsts, were 
imbued with the fear of Russian autocracy, stretch- 
ing its grasping hands across the Asian continent, and 
towards Korea and the Japan Sea. The masses were 
at one with the diplomats and statesmen in urging 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 39 

war against Russia as the only means of avoiding a 
great national disaster which, they believed, would 
surely befall Japan in the event of Russian occupa- 
tion of Korea and Manchuria. To cry peace and to 
oppose the war in the face of such strong determina- 
tion as was shown by the Japanese in those critical 
years preceding the Russian war, was as futile as an 
attempt to break the wall of adamant with a fist. 
The suppression of the socialist organ was the in- 
evitable outcome. How often has war furnished 
Governments with plausible reason for adopting 
measures which they would hesitate to adopt in 
times of peace ! 

In the Russo-Japanese war, then, the Socialist 
propaganda in Japan received a severe shock, from 
which it has never recovered. But the real influence 
of Socialism in Japan should not be judged from the 
number of its professed advocates, or from their 
obvious activities. Professor Isowo Abe, the greatest 
authority on Social problems in Japan, entertains 
the same view when he says in one of his recent 
essays: 

"Socialistic ideas have been widely diffused 
throughout the empire in the past few years, and 
scholars and statesmen are, in increasing numbers, 
devoting themselves to its study, while a great many 
students take interest in the subject. It would be a 
great mistake to judge the influence of socialism 
from the yet small number of professed socialists 
only. The socialistic spirit is afloat everywhere. 



40 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

To what, then, is the fact attributable that the 
poHtical movement of sociaHsts is yet very in- 
significant in influence? Certainly to the narrow 
limitation of the suffrage, by virtue of which the 
large number of socialists have no quahfication to 
participate in the parliamentary elections. But once 
the scope of suffrage is enlarged, their activities will 
be brilliant. It is for this reason that socialists are 
crying for the adoption of universal suffrage." 

After all has been said about the unsatisfactory 
political condition in Japan, it is fair to admit that 
democracy does not grow overnight like Topsy. We, 
who know how long it took England to reach her 
present stage of political freedom, must not be im- 
patient with the apparently slow progress of demo- 
cratic ideas in Japan. Considering the short period 
in which Japan has transformed her political system, 
we cannot but admire the courage and the singleness 
of purpose with which her leaders have devoted their 
energies to the difficult task of rehabilitation. What 
has already been done is remarkable, and promises 
greater achievements for the days to come. 

Few nations have turned to outside influences so 
sensitive a front as have the Japanese. The efforts 
they made, upon the opening of their country, to 
adapt themselves to the ideas and customs of the 
advanced peoples of the West, were almost pathetic 
in the steadfastness of their purpose. The supreme 
end to which those prodigious efforts were bent, was, 
of course, the elevation of their country to the plane 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 41 

of the Western nations which assumed an air of 
superiority in deaUng with them. The laws were 
codified in accordance with the modern principles of 
jurisprudence; their time-honored social usages and 
customs were modified so as to bring them more or 
less into harmony with Western ideas; foreign dress 
became the official dress, both for men and women, 
in the imperial court and in the various departments 
of government; the use of English was encouraged 
throughout the country; even Christianity, which 
had long been under the ban of the government, 
began to receive official recognition, if not encourage- 
ment. All this was not without its comical aspects, 
but no one will deny to the Japanese well-deserved 
credit for their determination to attain equality with 
the civilized nations of the West. Through all its 
apparent ffippancy the outstanding quality of the 
Japanese reveals itseK, and that is their extreme 
sensitiveness to external forces and their ability to 
adjust themselves to new conditions of life which 
they deem beneficial or inevitable. If this quality 
is turned to good use, as it has been in the past, 
Japan's pohtical ideals and her governmental system 
will, in due season, witness salutary evolution. 

Japan's continuous struggle for existence against 
formidable pressure from her powerful neighbors has 
been an important factor in retarding the progress of 
democracy in that country. When she opened her 
doors to foreigners, she was at once confronted by 
aggressive powers threatening her integrity and 



42 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

independence. Naturally the first task she was 
compelled to undertake was the organization of a 
strong centralized government, which seemed, under 
the circumstances, best suited to ensure national 
security. The war with China of 1895 was, from 
.the Japanese point of view, entirely a war of seK- 
preservation. China, then regarded as a sleeping 
giant, infinitely more powerful than Japan, had been 
determined to annex Korea, whose independence 
was deemed essential to the existence of Japan. The 
war ended in Japan's victory, and China accepted 
Japanese demands which were by no means exor- 
bitant. Then, Germany, France and Russia com- 
bined their influence to deprive the Japanese of the 
fruits of their victory. This again impelled them to 
fortify their position in a military sense to cope with 
the powers which had no scruple in trespassing upon 
the rights of Japan. Japan's fear of the West became 
even more intense when, only three years after the 
Chinese war, those very powers, which had com- 
pelled her to surrender what she had rightfully 
secured from China, began to slice for themselves 
large sections of China. Russia, in particular, proved 
so audacious as to appropriate for herself the very 
territory that she had, in the name of the peace of 
the Far East, advised Japan to surrender. Not 
satisfied with the actual absorption of Manchuria, 
Russia cast covetous eyes towards the peninsula of 
Korea. Had Korea been annexed by such an aggres- 
sive military power as Russia, the fate of Japan 



DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN 4S 

would have been sealed. In combatting Russia in 
the arena of Manchuria, Japan was inspired by no 
other motives than those of self-preservation. 

Confronted by formidable hostile nations one 
after another, Japan's energies were devoted to 
the sole purpose of preserving her integrity. After 
the Russian war the Japanese had a period of -re- 
spite, in which they were permitted to take a pause 
and look around to see where they were. Soon came 
the great war in Europe,and Japan was once again 
called upon to employ her military and naval forces. 

Few nations have had such a strenuous existence 
as Japan has had in the past half century. She has 
been pulled by external forces to a height for which 
she was not internally prepared. What wonder that 
she has been going forward with makeshifts impro- 
vised as necessity dictates? Such circumstances are 
not conducive to the growth of democracy. 

To the liberals of Japan, these critical times are 
a period of suspense, of doubt, of apprehension. They 
entertain sincere doubt as to the nature of the new 
age which is to dawn upon the ruins of the war. How 
will the tremendous armament which the war called 
into existence be retrenched? How will the powers 
dispose of the gigantic fleets of warships which they 
have built and are building? Will they agree to put 
their dreadnaughts and their guns upon the scrap 
heap? And, again, what will become of the mag- 
nificent fleets of merchant vessels which the nations 
have built for the transportation of troops and war 



X 



44 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

supplies? Will they become a formidable factor in 
the international rivalry for commercial supremacy — 
a rivalry which, no one can be sure, will not develop 
into an armed conflict, as has too often happened in 
the past? These are the questions which the Jap- 
anese advocates of liberalism are constantly asking. 
What they are particularly concerned with at pre- 
sent is the possible attitude of the Powers towards 
China after the conclusion of peace. 

In such a mental state of doubt and apprehension 
prevailing among the Japanese, the imperialists of 
Japan will undoubtedly find a receptive soil to sow 
seeds of militarism. Whether the cause of de- 
mocracy in Japan will be promoted after the war, 
therefore, must, to no small extent, depend upon the 
attitude of the Powers towards the Orient. If, after 
the war, the Western Powers will continue to deal 
with the Orient as she has been accustomed to deal, 
the cry of "preparedness" will continue to be the 
dominant note in the opinion of the leading men of 
Japan. Not long ago, an Occidental writer declared 
that the "only Chinese question that exists is, what 
the Powers of Europe will decide to do with China." 
If such continues to be the attitude of the Powers 
its effect upon Japan's internal politics cannot but 
be unfortunate. For it will furnish the military 
faction a convenient pretext not only to keep up a 
large army and a powerful navy, but to foster im- 
perialistic ideas as against the progress of liberalism 
and democracy. 



CHAPTER III 

THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD 
LEAGUE 

Baron Makino on the League of Nations — Japanese statesmen not in 
favor of raising the race issue — The race issue forced upon the 
envoys by popular clamor — Why the Japanese misunderstood 
Western sentiment — Mr. Wilson inspires the masses of Japan — 
Japan's population question — Japan's desire for expansion totally 
different from Germany's — Japan's real objective not free emigra-* 
tion — Japan not spokesman for all Asia — Why the Japanese are 
skeptical of the world league idea — Japan's disappointment at the 
Hague Court of Arbitration — The West maintains double standards 
of justice. 

When on February 15 the first draft of the covenant 
of the League of Nations was adopted by the Peace 
Congress, Baron Nobuaki Makino, senior member 
of the Japanese delegation, dehvered a congratula- 
tory speech in the course of which he said: 

"I beg to add another voice to echo the con- 
gratulatory speeches that have been made on the 
presentation of a document which is, perhaps, the 
most important document that has been compiled 
by man. The great leaders, with staunch purposes, 
have personified this great movement, a movement 
involving intricate problems of divers nations, and 
they deserve the gratitude of their fellow men for 
successfully piloting to this advanced stage a most 

45 



46 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

effective instrument for the maintenance of the peace 
of the world. Their names will be written indelibly 
on the pages of history, and that will be the grateful 
acknowledgment of humanity for their labor." 

At the same time, the Baron expressed a desire to 
reserve the "privilege of addressing, at a later stage 
of the discussion of this project, certain propositions 
which I hope will receive earnest and favorable con- 
sideration." If one remembers what the Japanese 
peace envoys had proposed two days before the adop- 
tion of the draft of the constitution of the League, 
one can surmise what Baron Makino had in mind in 
making this significant reservation. 

It will be recalled that on February 13 the Jap- 
anese envoys proposed that the covenant of the 
League of Nations should include an article abolish- 
ing racial discrimination in future international 
dealings. The Peace Conference, without giving 
Japan even a semblance of a hearing, rejected the 
proposal. 

Of all rebuffs Japan has met at the peace table, 
that was the most discouraging. By Japan I do 
not mean the Japanese Government, much less the 
Japanese peace envoys. By Japan I mean the 
Japanese people, for this proposal to eliminate racial 
discrimination was primarily the proposal of sixty 
million souls of the Mikado's Empire. One might 
almost say that it was forced upon the Japanese 
peace envoys by the masses of Japan. Not that the 
Japanese statesmen were not in sympathy with this 



THB RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 47 

popular demand, nor that they failed to recognize 
the logic and reason of the proposition. Convinced 
as they were of the justice of the argument advanced 
for the removal of racial barriers, the Japanese 
statesmen at the helm could not, nevertheless, see 
their way to put the proposition through the peace 
conference. However cogent and convincing the 
reasons might be in favor of the proposal, the Jap- 
anese leaders could not but recognize that the 
peoples of those great western countries, who had 
long discriminated against the Asiatic races, had not 
undergone a change of heart. To the contrary, they 
saw that even the baptism of blood and fire, from 
which the world had just emerged, failed to conse- 
crate mankind to the ideals of humanity and uni- 
versal brotherhood. What, then, would be the use of 
presenting to the Peace Congress such a pretentious 
proposal as the abolition of racial discrimination? 
The illustrious statesmen of the Occident — Wilson, 
Clemenceau, Lloyd-George, and their enlightened 
associates — might be broad enough to appreciate the 
reasonableness of such a proposition, but they, too, 
were naught but representatives of the multitudes 
of their respective countries, just as the Japanese 
envoys represented sixty millions of Nippon. And 
the multitudes whom those statesmen represented 
have, to no appreciable extent, altered their attitude 
towards the Asiatic peoples. 

The question of racial discrimination resolves it- 
self, on the last analysis, to the hackneyed expres- 



48 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

sion, "You cannot change human nature." And 
indeed the war has wrought Httle change upon human 
nature. Why, then, has the Japanese public been 
led to believe that the great statesmen at the Peace 
Congress may lend ear to a proposition to remove 
race discrimination .^^ The explanation is simple. 

For this miscalculation on the part of the Japanese 
the naivete of the Japanese mind is partly respon- 
sible. But a greater responsibility rests with the 
foremost statesmen, publicists and thinkers of Eu- 
rope and America who seemed, during the period of 
the war, to vie with one another in expressing them- 
selves in favor of justice and equity as the basic 
principles of international relations. In no previous 
war in the history of mankind has the world re- 
sounded with such humanitarian proclamations. 
To the Japanese, there was no doubt that the great 
war stirred the conscience of mankind and of nations, 
and created among them a sincere desire to readjust 
the future relationship among the civilized peoples 
of the world in accordance with the principles of 
humanity. 

In the movement to awaken this world aspiration 
for establishing a lasting peace upon justice and hu- 
manity, America and President Wilson have figured 
most prominently. Mr. Wilson's public addresses 
and his numerous messages to Congress since the 
beginning of the war contain many passages replete 
with lofty ideals and noble sentiments. All such 
addresses and messages have been translated and 



THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 49 

published in the Japanese press. Every utterance 
that fell from Mr. Wilson's lips, every sentence pro- 
ceeding from his pen on the question of the war have 
been read and studied by millions of Japanese people. 
Of Mr. Wilson's many noble utterances, one which 
went most forcibly home to the Japanese mind, is 
contained in the following passage of his historic war 
message of April 2, 1917: 

"Only a peace between equals can last. Only a 
peace the very principle of which is equality and a 
common participation in a common benefit. The 
right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, 
is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just set- 
tlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial 
and national allegiance. The equality of nations 
upon which peace must be founded, if it is to last, 
must be an equality of rights; the guarantees ex- 
changed must neither recognize nor imply a differ- 
ence between big nations and small, between those 
that are powerful and those that are weak. Right 
must be based upon the common strength, not upon 
the individual strength, of the nations upon whose 
concert peace will depend. Equality of territory or 
of resources there, of course, cannot be; nor any 
other sort of equaHty not gained in the ordinary 
peaceful and legitimate development of the peoples 
themselves. But no one asks or expects anything 
more than an equality of rights. Mankind is looking 
now for freedom of life, not for equipoises of power." 

From such humanitarian proclamations it seems 



50 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

but natural that the majority of the Japanese, un- 
famihar with the complex currents of thought and 
sentiment in Europe and America, should be encour- 
aged to conclude that, whatever be the attitude of 
the European statesmen, the illustrious American 
president, at least, would not turn a deaf ear to their 
appeals, the cardinal point of which is, in the presi- 
dent's own language, nothing more than an "equal- 
ity of rights," and a "freedom of life." Would 
that the Japanese might know that President Wilson, 
sagacious and sympathetic as he is, could not assume 
responsibility for all the ills of mankind. His shoul- 
ders, already bent under the weight of the white 
man's problems, could not carry the added biu^den 
of the yellow man's problems. 

If one realizes the unfeigned trust reposed in 
President Wilson by the Japanese, one can also ap- 
preciate the keen disappointment which was felt by 
them when Mr. Wilson uttered no encouraging word 
for the proposal against racial discrimination, which 
they had caused their envoys to lay before the Peace 
Congress. 

Ever since Japan opened her doors to foreign inter- 
course, the Japanese have observed that the Occi- 
dental nations had two standards of morals or 
justice, — one for themselves, and one for Asiatic 
peoples. If ever there was an opportunity for the 
abolition of this anomalous state of relations between 
the East and the West, the Japanese thought that 
the present Peace Congress offered such an oppor- 



THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 51 

tunity. They are wondering whether the feint of 
hearing, which their proposal received at the peace 
table, is an indication that the great Powers of the 
West mean to adhere to the double standards of 
justice which they have long maintained. 

To understand the intense feeling with which the 
Japanese desired to write into the covenant of the 
League of Nations an article providing for the re- 
moval of racial discrimination, one must know some- ' 
thing of the population problem which has been 
harassing the Japanese. 

During the past haK century Japan's population 
has been increasing at an average rate of 400,000 per- 
year. In recent years the rate of increase, instead-* -*" 
of diminishing, has shown a tendency to become K^ 
greater. The year 1917 witnessed a record-breaking 
increase, totaling 800,000 in round numbers. Fifty 
years ago Japan's population numbered some 
33,000,000; today it has increased to 57,998,000. As 
the total area of Japan proper measures only 148,756 
square miles, the density of population is about 389. 
While her population has been growing so rapidly 
she has in the past fifty years sent only 2,690,000 
emigrants to various countries, including Hokkaido 
(North Island of Japan), Formosa, Korea, Man- 
churia, Hawaii and North America. 

All European countries, at certain stages of their 
internal development, have alleviated the pressure 
of population at home by encouraging emigration. 
Moreover, most European countries have acquired 



f, ./ 



i< 



52 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

vast overseas territories which have proved profitable 
to the mother countries either as colonies or as 
sources of supply of raw materials. These two fac- 
tors — emigration and the acquisition of overseas 
)C territories have, to no small extent, been responsible 
for the increase of wages and the promotion of gen- 
eral welfare among the working classes in Occidental 
countries. Contrary to this advantage enjoyed by 
the European nations, Japan, one of the most con- 
-^ gested countries in the world, has, by agreement 
^ among the Occidental Powers, been compelled to 
grapple with the difficult task of disposing of "sur- 
_ plus population" without seeking colonial territories, 
and without sending her sons to any of the countries 
which seem to offer the greatest opportunities to 
emigrants with modest means. Today food mater- 
y ials produced from Japan's own soil are not enough 

'; to feed her own population. With the standards of 

1 living growing higher the shortage of food supply 

I becomes more serious. 

J Germany has always tried to justify her aggres- 
sive policy by referring to the necessity of finding a 
"place in the sun." Yet Germany has always been 
free to send emigrants wherever she pleased. Her 
subjects, whether entrepreneurs or laborers, mer- 
chants or tillers of the soil, have always been at liberty 
to settle and engage themselves in various enter- 
prises in all parts of the world. In a sense, therefore, 
Germany has always had her place in the sun. Were 
Japan allowed the same freedom and privilege as 



i 



THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 53 

have been enjoyed by Germany, she would perhaps 
have httle of which to complain. In Japan we see 
a nation whose need of a place in the sun is not im- y 
aginary, as in Germany's case, but decidedly real. 
A\Tiat Japan would see the Western Powers grant 
her is nothing more than what President Wilson . 
calls "an equality of rights." With Mr. Wilson, she 
recognizes the impossibility of establishing "equahty 
of territory or of resources" among the various 
nations. Japan asks for no other kind of equality 
than that which can be gained "in the ordinary 
peaceful and legitimate development of the peoples 
themselves." *" 

In spite of the serious pressure of population at 
home, Japan cheerfully entered into agreement with jji; 

the United States, Canada, and Australia, restrict- " 

ing the emigration of her people to those countries. 
These agreements have been observed by Japan in 
good faith and with the greatest strictness. And 
yet the governments of those Western countries 
have not desisted from enacting measures curbing 
the rights and privileges of those Japanese who have ' 

been admitted into those countries in accordance |, 

with the provisions of the same agreements. Indeed, f 

this last named discrimination has proved even fll 

more galling to the Japanese than the prohibition 
of emigration that has been imposed upon them. 
There is reason to believe that the Japanese com- 
plaint would be quieted, if the great Powers were to 
agree upon a principle of non-discrimination to be 



54 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

applied to the treatment of Orientals lawfully ad- 
mitted into their domains, if not to the larger ques- 
tion of Oriental emigration. As an indication of this 
conciliatory attitude on the part of the Japanese, I 
y quote the following passages from a recent editorial 
■ ^ in the Tokyo Asahi, admittedly one of the most in- 
fluential organs of public opinion in Japan: 

"We do not propose to send our emigrants of the 
laboring class even where they are not welcome. 
But we do demand that our countrymen, who have 
gone abroad in compliance with the provisions of 
Y our treaties and are engaged in legitimate business 
and enterprises in foreign countries, should be ac- 
corded the same protection and the same privileges 
as are enjoyed by other nationals who are settled 
in those countries. We also demand that our mer- 
chants and travellers — ^people who do not belong to 
the laboring class — should not be made to suffer in 
foreign countries such inconveniences and restric- 
tions as have never been imposed upon the "white" 
persons of a corresponding class. These are the 
essential points which we hope will be seriously 
considered by those statesmen of the West who are 
championing the cause of humanity. 

"This, of course, does not mean that we recognize 
the justice of the exclusion policy assumed by cer- 
tain western countries against our emigrants. To 
the contrary, we believe that such sparsely populated 
countries as Australia, most sections of which have 
only one inhabitant to the square mile, should re- 



^E:ne-L-iiL iaB.CT.V . 1 



THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 55 

ceive our emigrants. At the same time, we realize 
that our insistence upon this point will disturb our 
amicable relationship with foreign nations. Wisdom 
dictates that we should not insist upon an absolute 
freedom of emigration for our people of the working 
class. 

"But there is no reason why the exclusive or re- 
strictive measures directed against our working men 
should also be applied to our merchants and travel- 
lers, who, small in number, seek to enter countries 
controlled by Western nations. For this class of our 
countrymen, we can reasonably demand an absolute 
freedom of travel and residence. We must also see 
to it that those of our countrymen who have been 
lawfully admitted into such countries are not made 
objects of discrimination and persecution, and sub- 
jected to inequitable laws, often depriving them of 
the means of livelihood as well as the security of 
property." 

I feel justified in saying that, even if the proposal 
for the abohtion of racial discrimination were adopted, 
Japan would not insist upon the complete and im- 
mediate removal of the barriers which have been 
erected against Japanese immigration in various 
Western countries. What Japan will insist upon is 
nothing more than a fair and just treatment for the 
Japanese who are entitled to travel or reside in those 
countries. Nor does she urge that all Asiatic peoples 
be put upon an equal footing, if the Western Gov- 
ernmentsfind it more practicable to deal with the 



56 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

Japanese independently of other Asiatic races. For 
Japan certainly has no ambition to be the champion 
and mouthpiece for her numerous and ponderous 
neighbors on the continent. At the same time, 
Japan feels that no nation should be made an object 
of discrimination at the hand of any Power with 
which it is on a plane of equality. This is an inter- 
national usage, unwritten but nevertheless in force. 
A nation, admitted by universal consent into the 
comity of the world's foremost Powers, must be 
accorded the respect and consideration due such a 
Power. Fortunately or unfortunately, Japan is 
the only nation in the Orient which has attained 
such a position. She would fain leave it for the 
Western statesmen to decide whether she should be 
put in a class separate from other Asiatic peoples. 

The rejection by the Peace Congress of the Jap- 
anese contention on the race issue must inevitably 
accentuate the skeptical views prevailing among 
the Japanese concerning the league of nations. In 
principle, the Japanese are, of course, ready to wel- 
come any proposal for the creation of a world court 
and international commissions to which all inter- 
national difficulties may be submitted for readjust- 
ment. As a practical question, however, they are 
still at a loss to decide whether such courts and com- 
missions which will inevitably be dominated by the 
representatives of the Western nations will be capa- 
ble of doing justice to the claims of Asiatic nations, 
insignificant both in number and in influence. From 



THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 57 

the Japanese point of view, Japan's past experiences 
in dealing with the great powers of Europe and 
America have been far from reassuring. 

To illustrate the skeptical views prevailing among 
certain classes of Japanese on such questions as a 
court of arbitration and a league of nations, we may 
refer to the decision rendered by the Hague Court 
of Arbitration, in 1905, on the matter of taxation 
upon the property of foreigners in Japan. 

When Japan opened her doors to international 
intercourse half a centm*y ago, she agreed to set 
apart certain sections in the open ports for the resi- 
dential and business purposes of foreigners. In 
these "settlements" foreigners secured from the 
Japanese government perpetual leases of lands. 
Not only were rents on such lands nominal, but they 
were exempt from all taxation. With the abrogation 
of the old treaties in 1898 these foreign settlements 
were also abolished, but even then Japan had to 
acquiesce in the insistence of foreign governments 
that the perpetual leases must remain valid. 

When the Japanese authorities contracted the 
treaties exempting the leased lands from taxation, 
they had no intention of extending this prerogative 
to the buildings which the foreigners would erect 
thereon. Since the establishment of the leases the 
foreigners have set up buildings amounting in value 
to many millions of dollars. Consequently the 
Japanese government asked them to pay taxes on 
these buildings, asserting that the immunity from 



58 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

taxation stipulated in the treaties was meant to 
apply only to the lands and not to the buildings. 
This contention seemed the more reasonable because 
rents on lands were but nominal. But the British, 
French, and German governments took a firm stand 
against this Japanese interpretation of the treaties. 
So the dispute was submitted to the Permanent 
Court of Arbitration at the Hague in 1904. The 
tribunal which considered this case consisted of two 
arbitrators and an umpire. The arbitrators were 
M. Louis Renault, professor of law in the University 
of Paris, representing the three European govern- 
ments concerned, and Mr. Ichiro Motono, the 
Japanese Minister at Paris, representing the govern- 
ment at Tokyo. The umpire was Mr. Gregers Gram, 
formerly Norwegian Minister of State. The decision 
rendered under date of May 22, 1905, sustains the 
contention of the European Powers that the treaties 
exempt not only the land but "buildings of every 
description constructed or which may hereafter be 
constructed on such land, from all imposts, taxes, 
charges, contributions or conditions whatsoever." 
The Japanese representative had, of course, to abide 
by the decision, but in putting his signature to the 
document he recorded his "entire disagreement with 
the majority of the Tribunal both as regards the 
argument and the conclusion." 

The significance of this decision lies not so much 
in its material effects as in the moral influence which 
it has produced upon the Japanese mind. From a 



THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 59 

material point of view, payment or non-payment of 
taxes upon a few million dollars worth of property 
is comparatively a small matter. The important 
point in issue is the principle involved. The Jap- 
anese are still firmly convinced of the justice and 
fairness of their contention on the question above 
described, and are grieved that their first experience 
in an international court, to which they had looked 
up with profound respect, proved disappointing. 
They are indeed impelled to wonder whether an 
equitable judgment can ever be meted out to an 
Asiatic nation by a tribunal in which the majority 
of judges are men identified with Occidental govern- 
ments. This apprehension must inevitably be 
intensified by the denial of the Peace Congress to 
recognize that racial difference should not be per- 
mitted to interfere with international intercourse. 

It cannot be denied that in the past the nations of 
the West have applied to Asiatic peoples standards 
of justice and equity quite different from those 
applied to themselves. Even those Westerners and 
those Western organizations professing to advocate 
internationalism have been incapable of redeeming 
themselves from this traditional attitude. This is 
best illustrated by the attitude of Socialists and labor 
unionists in Europe and America. The Allied 
Labor Conference held at Leeds in July, 1916, 
adopted a programme guaranteeing to the working 
people of all countries "freedom to work in any 
coimtry where employment is available under equal 



60 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

conditions with its citizens." To the International 
Labor Conference now being held in Paris, American 
labor has submitted a platform containing the provi- 
sion that "no political or economic restrictions 
meant to benefit some nations and to cripple or 
embarrass others" shall be adopted by any country. 
Did the labor leaders of Europe and America, in 
adopting such provisions, have in mind the working 
classes in the Orient, as well as their fellows in the 
Occident? If they did, their acts certainly have not 
conformed with their principles. When Socialists in 
Europe and America pledge themselves to interna- 
tionalism they are thinking only of Europe and 
America, forgetting that across the oceans teeming 
milHons are crying for larger fields of activity. When 
the trade unionists of Europe and America speak of 

y the brotherhood of workers, they are thinking only 
of their own race. They complain that Japanese 
working men work for low wages, ignoring that, if 
the teeming masses of England or America were 

r bottled up in a small archipelago as are the Japanese, 
their wage scale would not have risen as rapidly as it 
has. When the pacifists of Europe and America 
advocate world peace, they seem to mean mainte- 
nance of peace by sustaining the status quo of the 
y relations of the East and West — ^by permitting the 
West not only to continue its occupation, in all parts 
of the world, of more territory than it is justly en- 
titled to possess, but also to exclude from such terri- 
tories all dark-skinned races whose overcrowded 



THE RACE PROBLEM AND THE WORLD LEAGUE 61 

home lands afford not only scant opportunity to their 
natives, but are themselves often subject to ruthless 
exploitation at the hands of the West. A Western 
nation may declare a Monroe Doctrine, but is re- 
luctant to accord an Asiatic nation a similar privilege. 
The West expects the East to open its doors to the 
enterprises and even exploitation of the white race, 
but reserves the right to slam its own doors in the 
face of the East. 

It is highly doubtful that this anomalous relation- 
ship between the Orient and Occident will be ap- 
preciably altered by the organization of the League 
of Nations which refuses to accept the obviously just 
principle that no race in the league shall be dis- 
criminated against in any of the countries bound by 
its covenant. As far as Asia is concerned, the League 
is not hkely to be a harbinger of glad tidings. Even 
the former German colonies will, under the eupho- 
nious title of mandatory, be controlled by a Western 
nation or nations, which will exclude therefrom all 
Orientals as they have excluded them from other 
territories in their possession. The Far Eastern 
peoples, then, must not, under the new world regime, 
expect much brighter days, but must be prepared to 
trudge along the same thorny path as heretofore, 
making the best use of their own resources, and 
endeavoring not to trespass upon the domain monop- 
olized by the great Powers of the West, even if they 
have to trample uppn one another within their own 
sphere in the sheer struggle for existence. 



62 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

Since this chapter was written Japan has revised 
her proposition, making it clear that she does not 
seek free immigration and that her sole object is to 
safeguard the rights and privileges of her nationals 
who are already in or may hereafter be admitted into, 
foreign countries in conformity with treaties (such as 
the "gentlemen's agreement") which she has entered 
or may enter into with other nations. This is the 
principle which Japan proposes to apply equally to 
all nations which are members of the League. 

As the manuscript goes to press (April 30) the fate 
of this proposal is still uncertain. 



CHAPTER IV 
JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 

Why the masses of Japan clamor for the Pacific islands — Japan's over- 
population the real cause for that clamor — Japanese emigration — 
Japan has no real colony — Resources of the South Pacific islands — 
Potash deposits valuable to rice culture in Japan — The Marshall 
Islands — The Caroline Islands — The islands under the League of 
Nations. 

In a statement issued on the question of mandatory 
for the Marshall and Caroline islands, a member of 
the Japanese peace delegation said: 

"The Japanese have a great pride in their achieve- 
ments in the Pacific, and feel that they should be per- 
mitted to extend their culture and civilization to the 
two groups of islands which are inhabited by un- 
developed peoples." 

This is an official view diplomatically expressed. 
It may be sincere, but does not echo the popular 
sentiment. 

The masses of Japan do not base their clamor for 
the South Pacific islands upon such pretentious ab- 
stract arguments. Their claim is more spontaneous, 
more direct, more straight from the shoulder. They 
do not "beat around the bush," like diplomats, but 
plainly assert that they want to keep those islands 
because they need them more badly than any other 
nation. 



64 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

To be explicit, the popular clamor for the South 
Pacific islands proceeds from the instinctive fear of 
the Japanese that they will be eventually smothered 
to death if they are permanently bottled up in their 
own small archipelago. It is like a drowning man 
frantically clinging to anything that may come within 
his reach. He does not stop to think whether the 
thing he is going to catch will keep him afloat. You 
may tell the Japanese that those islands in the South 
Pacific are of no value as a colonial territory. But 
the populace would not listen to such expostulations. 
To them the Marshalls and the Carolines were 
German colonies, and that is enough. If the Ger- 
mans, they ask, made colonies of them, why can 
they not be utilized by the Japanese as colonies? 

We may liken the Japanese clamor for the South 
Pacific islands to the popular support of the League 
of Nations in Europe and America. There are many 
enlightened critics who detect flaws in the covenant 
qf the League, and point out difficulties which are, 
t6 them, certain to arise once it is put into execution. 
To the war-weary masses such fine argmnents do not 
appeal. To them it is enough that the League is 
meant to abolish war. On the question of the 
Pacific islands, we also notice the vague, instinctive 
feeling of the masses of Japan asserting itself in much 
the same way against the fine reasoning of enlight- 
ened critics like Professor Yoshino, of the Imperial 
University, pointing out the uselessness of those 
islands for colonial purposes. 



JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 65 

In discussing the race problem in connection with 
the League of Nations in Chapter III, I called at- 
tention to the land-shortage and overpopulation 
from which Japan is suffering. That aspect of Japan's 
national existence must be kept in mind, if we are to 
understand the universal desire of the Japanese 
people to develop the South Pacific islands now in 
their hands. 

During the past haK century the population of 
Japan proper has been increasing at the rate of 
400,000 per year. In other words, where there were 
33,000,000 Japanese fifty years ago, thfere are to- 
day about 53,000,000. 

As the total area of Japan proper measures about 
148,756 square miles, the density of population is 
about 356 per square mile. 

If we leave out of consideration Hokkaido, the 
northern island, the density increases to 451 per 
square mile. In other words, 110,212 square miles 
of three of the four islands constituting Japan proper- - 
represent the area demanding relief from congestion^- 

The first available territory for the solution of 
the question is the island of Hokkaido just mentioned. 
Hokkaido is, of course, very small, measuring only 
30,275 square miles. Moreover, it is traversed by 
mountain ranges, while its winters are severe and 
protracted. 

The second territory available for colonization is 
Korea. This newly annexed territory has an area of 
86,000 square miles, with a population of 14,566,73. ^ 



V 



y 



K 



Ob JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

This gives a density of 169 per square mile. The 
-* X , country, therefore, offers no great room for Japanese 
settlers. 

The third country to which Japan looks for relief 
is South Manchuria. This territory, though con- 
V taining 91,000 square miles, is almost as thickly popu- 
lated as Korea. Moreover, with the exception of 
the leased territory of the Kwantung peninsula 
A (1,290 square miles) and a very narrow strip of land 
along the South Manchuria railway, the country is 
not under Japanese control. By the Chino-Japanese 
agreement of 1915, the Japanese secured the privi- 
lege of engaging in agricultural pursuits in this region, 
and it is hoped that it will hereafter afford more room 
and opportunity to Japanese settlers. 

I have shown that during the past five decades 
Japan's population has increased by 20,000,000. As 
against this increase Japan has sent but 2,690,000 
emigrants to various countries as follows: Hokkaido 
(Northern island of Japan), 2,000,000; Formosa 
^Southern island of Japan), 100,000; Korea, 300,000; 
Manchuria, 100,000; Hawaii, 80,000; Continental 
United States, 70,000; China, South America and 
others combined, 40,000. 

England, when the rate of increase in her popula- 
tion was highest, sent her sons and daughters abroad 
by the hundreds of thousands every year. So did 
Germany. To the United States alone the German 
Empire has sent many millions of emigrants. From 
1881 to 1899, when the tide of German emigration 



JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 67 

was highest, Germans came to this country at the 
average of 124,200 per annum. In South America 
Brazil alone has received more than a million Ger- 
mans. It may be safely stated that all European 
countries have alleviated the pressure of population v 
at home by encouraging emigration. The most con- 
spicuous example at present is Italy. 

Now Japan, one of the most congested countries 
in the world, is compelled to solve the same question 
without sending emigrants to those countries which 
offer the greatest opportunities. With her popula- 
tion increasing at the rate of 400,000 every year, 
this is no easy task. Yet Japan, docile and courte- 
ous, is mindful of the admonition of the "big broth- 
ers" of the West, and is willing to undertake this 
Herculean task. In refraining from sending her 
emigrants to British colonies, and in accepting the 
"gentlemen's agreement" with the United States, 
Japan has signified her intention to dispose of the 
serious question of surplus population without em- 
barrassing the Western nations. .. 

It is true that Belgium, Holland, and Great Bri- ,'^ 
tain are more densely populated than Japan. Bel- I * 
gium with its 659 inhabitants to the square mile, is "^ 
the most thickly populated country. Holland with 
474 population per square mile, and England with^ \/ 
370, come next, followed by Japan's 356, Italy's 316, 
Germany's 310, and France's 193. China, including 
her outlying territories, has only 70 people to the 
square mile. 



68 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

Although some European countries are more 
densely populated than Japan, those countries have 
each acquired extensive colonies, which either afford 
room for a large population to alleviate congestion 
at home, or store abundant natural resources to be 
utilized for the benefit of the home population. 

Thus England, whose home territory supports 370 
people per square mile, possesses vast colonies total- 
ing 12,624,435 square miles, from which all Asiatics 
are most strictly excluded, though their population 
number but 31 to the square mile. 

Again Belgium, though most densely populated at 
home, has colonies totaling 900,000 square miles, 
harboring only 16 inhabitants to the square mile. 
Holland, the second most crowded country in the 
world, has greater colonies than Belgium. 

On the other hand, Japan, whose home land shel- 
ters 356 people per square mile, has just recently 
acquired 95,700 square miles of colonial territories. 
But these territories are already thickly populated- 
having 187 inhabitants per square mile. 

Germany has been clamoring for a "place in the 
sun," yet she had before the present war already 
brought imder her flag more than a million square 
miles of colonial lands, averaging only 13 people to 
the square mile. 

Russia, whose home land measures as much as 
1,862,000 square miles, supporting only 122,550,000 
people, or 65 to the square mile, has already won 
6,785,000 square miles of thinly populated territories. 



JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 69 

and was, under the old regime, eager to expand at 
the expense of China and Japan. Was not Mongoha 
(1,368,000 square miles), Chinese Turkestan (550,000 
square miles), and three-fourths of Manchuria 
(273,000 square miles) virtually added to the map 
of Russia? 

In the peculiar condition of Japan which we have 
above noted lies the real reason for the Japanese 
demand to retain the Pacific islands and to develop^ 
what resources they may have in store. The islands 
are, of course, too small for settlement purposes, but 
they have certain raw materials which can be used 
to the great advantage of Japan. 

Chief among such materials are potash deposits 
found in large quantities in the Marshall islands.7 
As Japan's soil is not naturally rich, but is made 
productive only by artificial means and by the most 
painstaking cultivation, these potash deposits will 
be of great value in the agricultural development of 
the country. Potash is especially valuable in the 
culture of rice, the staple food of the Japanese. As '^ 
the Japanese have raised rice on the same land for 
many centuries, the yield must inevitably diminish, 
unless fertilizer is liberally applied. With the rapid 
growth of her population, Japan's crop of rice is- 
hardly enough to meet demand. This was indeed 
one of the causes of the rice riot in the summer of /. 
1918, resulting in many deaths and the destruction 
of valuable property. If the Japanese are forbidden 
to leave their country and immigrate into territories 



70 



JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 



offering greater opportunities, they must find some 
means to increase the productivity of their soil. 

Before the war Japan was dependent upon the 
German Potash Trust for the supply of the fer- 
tilizer essential to rice culture. The German trust, 
with the aid of the Strassfurt and Alsatian potash 
deposits, has practically controlled the output of this 
commodity. If Japan has at her command the 
potash deposits of the Marshall islands, her suffering 
from land-shortage and overpopulation will be al- 
leviated to a degree. 

Moreover, the Pacific islands are rich with copra 
and other tropical products. The Japanese, having 
never had free access to tropical lands, are naturally 
anxious to possess those islands, even though they 
are but dots of land. 

The Marshall group consists of two chains or 
rows of lagoon islands, some of which are uninhabited. 
One of these two chains is called Ratack, consisting 
of thirteen islets, and the other Ralick, comprising 
eleven islets. These islands have belonged to Ger- 
many since 1885. At the beginning of the war the 
Europeans on the islands numbered 179, of whom 91 
were Germans. The native population is estimated 
at 15,000. Jaluit is the largest island in the group 
and has been the seat of the German administration. 

The Caroline group consists of some five hundred 
coral islets. Chief among them are Ponape, with 
2,000 inhabitants, Yap, 7,155, and Kusai, 400. The 
group, together with the Pelew and Marianne groups. 



JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 71 

was, in 1899, ceded to Germany by Spain for the 
payment of $4,200,000. Ponape islands, perhaps 
the largest in the Caroline group, has an area of some 
130 square miles. The phosphate deposits on the 
island are the most valuable asset. All larger islands 
in the Caroline and Marshall groups produce po- 
tatoes, white yams, cocoanuts, breadfruit, and other 
tropical fruits. There is no doubt that the islands, 
in the hands of the Japanese, will prove economically 
useful. 

Japan has agreed to place the islands under the 
League of Nations, but she will undoubtedly be 
appointed the mandatory for them. Under the 
Japanese mandate, not only will the resources of the 
islands be fully developed, but the native population 
will receive the benefit of an efficient administration. 



CHAPTER V 
JAPAN AND SIBERIA 

Foreign Minister Viscount Motono on Siberia — Japan confers with 
France and England on the chaos in Siberia — France suggests 
intervention — Russian views in favor of allied intervention — 
Bolshevik-German intrigue in Siberia — The Japanese press and 
the elder statesmen objected to Siberian intervention — Ambassador 
Uchida on Bolshevism — American opposition to intervention — 
Appearance of Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia — President Wilson changes 
his attitude — His statement of August 3, 1918 — Japan concurs with 
America — The Japanese statement — ^The failure of the Wilson 
policy — Unnecessary sacrifices due to Mr. Wilson's delay — Japanese 
conduct in Siberia — Foreign Minister Uchida's declaration on Rus- 
sia — Japan withdraws her troops from Siberia — The disputed ques- 
tion of the Siberian railway — The American agreement with the 
Kerensky administration — An international control of the Siberian 
railway — The Monroe Doctrine, American and Japanese. 

In early February, 1918, the press of the world, in- 
cluding that of Japan, began publishing news to the 
effect that Japan had proposed armed intervention in 
Siberia. In view of the great ado created by this 
news at that time, the following definite statement 
made by Viscount Ichiro Motono, then Foreign 
Minister of Japan, in the House of Representatives 
on March 27, 1918, is as surprising as it is significant :- 
"The Japanese Government has neither suggested 
nor proposed to any country whatever the idea of 
military action in Siberia. None the less they see, 

72 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 7S 

with the greatest concern, the actual state of affairs 
in Siberia, particularly the danger involved in the 
eastward movement of German influence. 

"The Japanese Government has received no joint 
proposal from the Allies on the subject. Should 
Japan be approached, however, in the future by the 
Allied Governments, she would give the matter the 
most careful consideration. She will on no account 
slacken the effort, which she has been and is making 
wholeheartedly for the common cause of the Allies. 

"Should the situation in Siberia become such as to 
threaten the security of this Empire or endanger its 
vital interests, the Government is determined to 
take prompt and adequate measures of seK-defense. 

"Even in the event of this country being compelled 
by force of circumstances to send troops to Siberia, 
the Imperial Government has no intention whatever 
of treating Russia as an enemy. We will never adopt 
an aggressive policy such as Germany is pursuing 
in European Russia. Indeed, I do not hesitate to 
declare unreservedly and most sincerely that the 
deep and warm sympathy of this nation is wholly 
with the Russian people, with whom we are most 
anxious to continue and to promote cordial friend- 
ship. And I believe that this view is held in common 
by all the Allies." 

Even the Japanese press was puzzled by this sweep- 
ing denial. It is unthinkable that Viscount Motono 
had taken no steps concerning the Siberian situa- 
tion. Where there is no fire, there can be no smoke. 



74t JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

What did Japan really do? As far as we are able to 
ascertain, the real situation was this. 

When Russia was about to sign a separate treaty 
of peace at Brest-Litovsk, Viscount Motono in- 
structed the Japanese ambassadors at London and 
Paris to ask Downing Street and the Quai d'Orsay, 
in an informal manner, what measures they thought 
Japan should take in the Russian Far East, now that 
the Bolsheviki had all but violated Russia's agree- 
ment with her allies in regard to the conduct of the 
war. The Japanese Foreign Minister submitted no 
formal or definite proposal either to England or 
France, and, of course, said nothing about the inter- 
vention in Siberia. 

France, or some of her responsible statesmen, 
when thus approached by the Japanese ambassador, 
urged immediate dispatch of Japanese troops to 
Siberia. In their judgment this was not only Japan's 
right but her duty. England, though at first un- 
decided, was understood eventually to have joined 
France in suggesting Siberian intervention. 

Having received such suggestions, the Japanese 
Cabinet took up the matter for consideration. It is 
reported that Foreign Minister Motono was favor- 
ably inclined to the idea of intervention. In taking 
this attitude Viscount Motono was undoubtedly 
influenced by the appeals of the Russians themselves, 
for the Russians, opposed to the Bolsheviki, enter- 
tained the opinion that military intervention was the 
only way to save Russia. Prince Lvoff, who headed 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 75 

the first provisional government after the over- 
throw of the Romanoff dynasty, was one of the lead- 
ing Russians who had been urging allied interven- 
tion in Siberia. Alexander Kerensky, the premier 
of the second provisional government, which suc- 
ceeded the Lvoff administration, frankly admitted 
that allied military assistance must precede economic 
aid. In the opinion of Mr. Eugene de Schelking, 
formerly First Secretary of the Russian Embassy 
at Berlin, aUied intervention in Siberia, to be worth 
while, must be backed by a force of at least 80,000 
soldiers of whom 50,000 might be Japanese. Mr. 
Konovalov, Minister of Trade and Industry under 
three provisional governments, declared that mili- 
tary intervention was the only means that could 
save Russia from the state of chaos into which it 
had been thrown. The Russian citizens in Harbin 
and Vladivostok also passed resolutions appealing 
for military aid from the entente allies. 

While anti-Bolshevik Russians were appealing to 
Japan for military intervention, the Bolsheviki 
had entered into an agreement with the German 
General Staff, promising to send Russian agitators 
and agents of destruction out of Vladivostok to the 
ports of the United States, Japan, and the British 
colonies. They had also agreed to ship across Si- 
beria three submarines in parts, to be put together 
at Vladivostok and used in the Pacific to the detri- 
ment of allied shipping. The evidence of these in- 
trigues was made public by the American Committee 



76 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

on Public Information on September 14, 1918, but 
in the inner circles of the Japanese and American 
Governments it had been known as early as the be- 
ginning of that year. 

All these circumstances had conspired to induce 
Foreign Minister Motono to believe that an armed 
intervention was inevitable. And yet his idea was 
far from receiving united endorsement from his col- 
leagues. Public opinion, as expressed in the news- 
papers, was also adverse to Viscount Motono. When 
the Brest-Litovsk treaty was about to be signed, 
the Japanese press were naturally greatly excited 
and thought that Germany, riding upon the crest 
of the Russian debacle, would immediately stretch 
her hands across Siberia, and become a serious men- 
ace to the Far East. As time passed, however, they 
learned to view the situation a little more calmly, 
and came to the conclusion that Japan could wait 
until the German menace in Eastern Siberia as- 
sumed a more definite aspect. 

Even stronger was the objection raised by the 
"elder statesmen" to the idea of sending an armed 
expedition to Siberia. Prince Yamagata, dean of the 
elder statesmen, was of the opinion that Japan must 
establish better relations with China before she was 
in a position to undertake anything in Siberia. 

Then came surprising statements of Viscount 
Uchida, the Japanese ambassador to Russia, oppos- 
ing the suggestion of Siberian intervention for much 
the same reasons for which President Wilson has 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 77 

withheld his endorsement of that suggestion. The 
ambassador had, from the beginning, counselled his 
colleagues at home not to take rash action with 
regard to the Russian situation. Upon his return to 
Tokyo on March 22, he gave out statements which 
were astonishing to the press and the public. He 
said that the Bolsheviki were not such rascals as 
many Japanese would make them; that Bolshevism 
was in Russia to stay; that many of the German 
prisoners in Russia had become so enamored with 
Bolshevism that the Kaiser was afraid to have them 
come home; that the German menace in Siberia had 
not yet become so serious as to require immediate 
mobilization of the Japanese army. Viscount 
Uchida counselled the press of Japan to judge the 
Bolsheviki, not from their methods, but from the 
principles they were trying to realize. Of course his 
views on Bolshevism are open to criticism, and in- 
deed he was severely taken to task by the public for 
his extraordinary attitude. But his counsel un- 
doubtedly threw a new light upon the Russian 
question. Whether influenced by it or not, the 
Cabinet decided against Foreign Minister Motono's 
opinion which favored intervention. 

In addition to these circumstances, militating 
against the idea of Siberian intervention, President 
Wilson could not see his way to endorse any plan 
which would assume the appearance of an inter- 
ference with Russia's domestic affairs. Japan, of 
course, had no desire to create discord among the 



78 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

entente allies on the Siberian question. As long as 
the German penetration of the Russian Far East did 
not spell danger to her security, Japan was willing 
enough to let Siberia alone. President Wilson's 
counsel, opposing an armed intervention across the 
Japan Sea, was welcomed in the Mikado's Empire. 

And thus the matter was entirely dropped for the 
time being in responsible circles in Japan. Yet 
conditions in Siberia were going from bad to worse. 
The Bolsheviki were everywhere fraternizing with 
German and Austrian prisoners of war whom they 
had released. East of Lake Baikal they were fighting 
against General Semenoff, the leader of the anti- 
Bolshevik forces in Eastern Siberia. The number of 
liberated war prisoners in that region was estimated 
variously between 30,000 to 60,000. 

At that critical period a new and important factor 
was injected into the Siberian situation in the advent 
of a large number of Czecho-Slovaks who came into 
collision with the Bolsheviki and their German allies. 
These Czecho-Slovaks were originally part of the 
Austrian army. They had, fifty thousand strong, 
deserted Austria and joined the Russian army at the 
eastern front, intending to help defeat the central 
Powers with the hope of securing the independence of 
their native land. When Russia collapsed under 
the Bolshevik regime, the Czecho-Slovaks took 
possession of Siberian trains and moved eastward 
with the intention of going to the western front by 
way of America. By the summer of 1918 many of 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 79 

these Czecho-Slovaks reached eastern Siberia, and 
there engaged the Bolsheviki and Germans in fighting. 

In the advent of these soldiers, ahen to Russian 
soil. President Wilson saw a gleam of hope for re- 
storing order in Siberia. In June, 1918, Mr. Wilson 
began to negotiate with Japan with a view to sending 
a Japanese-American force to Siberia for the aid of 
the Czecho-Slovaks. On August 3 the two Govern- 
ments, having arrived at an agreement, simul- 
taneously issued statements defining their attitude 
towards Siberia. The American statement, evidently 
prepared by Mr. Wilson himself, contained this dec- 
laration: 

"As the Government of the United States sees the 
present circumstances, military action is admissible 
in Russia now only to render such protection and 
help as is possible to the Czecho-Slovaks against the 
armed Austrian and German prisoners who are at- 
tacking them, and to steady any efforts at self- 
government or self-defense in which the Russians 
themselves may be willing to accept assistance. . . . 

"In taking this action, the Government of the 
United States wishes to announce to the people of 
Russia in the most public and solemn manner that it 
contemplates no interference with the political 
sovereignty of Russia, no intervention in her internal 
affairs — not even in the local affairs of the limited 
areas which her military force may be obliged to 
occupy — and no impairment of her territorial in- 
tegrity, either now or hereafter, but that what we are 



80 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

about to do has as its single and only object the 
rendering of such aid as shall be acceptable to the 
Russian people themselves in their endeavors to 
regain control of their own affairs, their own terri- 
tory, and their own destiny." 

Echoing the sentiment expressed in the American 
statement, the Japanese statement declared: 

"The Japanese Government, actuated by senti- 
ments of sincere friendship toward the Russian 
people, have always entertained most sanguine hopes 
of the speedy re-establishment of order in Russia 
and of the healthy, untrammeled development of her 
national life. 

"Abundant proof, however, is now afforded that 
the Central European Empires, taking advantage of 
the defenseless and chaotic condition in which Russia 
has momentarily been placed, are consolidating their 
hold on that country and are steadily extending their 
activities to Russia's eastern possessions. They have 
persistently interfered with the passage of Czecho- 
slovak troops through Siberia. In the forces now 
opposing these valiant troops German and Austro- 
Hungarian prisoners are freely enlisted, and they 
practically assume a position of command. 

"The Czecho-Slovak troops, aspiring to secure a 
free and independent existence for their race and 
loyally espousing the common cause of the Allies, 
justly command every sympathy and consideration 
from the co-belligerents, to whom their destiny is a 
matter of deep and abiding concern. 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 81 

**In the presence of the danger to which the Czecho 
Slovak troops actually are exposed in Siberia at the 
hands of the Germans and Austro-Hungarians, the 
Allies have naturally felt themselves unable to view 
with indifference the untoward course of events, and 
a certain number of their troops already have been 
ordered to proceed to Vladivostok. 

"The Government of the United States, equally 
sensible of the gravity of the situation, recently ap- 
proached the Japanese Government with proposals 
for the early dispatch of troops to relieve the pres- 
sure weighing upon the Czecho-Slovak forces. The 
Japanese Government, being anxious to fall in with 
the desires of the American Government, have de- 
cided to proceed at once to make disposition of 
suitable forces for the proposed mission, and a certain 
number of these troops will be sent forthwith to 
Vladivostok. 

"In adopting this course, the Japanese Govern- 
ment remain constant in their desire to promote 
relations of enduring friendship, and they reaflSrm 
their avowed policy of respecting the territorial in- 
tegrity of Russia, and of abstaining from all inter- 
ference in her internal politics. They further declare 
that upon the realization of the objects above indi- 
cated they will immediately withdraw all Japanese 
troops from Russian territory, and will leave wholly 
unimpaired the sovereignty of Russia in all its phases, 
whether political or military." 

Looking at the Siberian situation in the light of 



82 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

what has developed since the advent of the American- 
Japanese forces, one is incHned to think that the 
policy initiated by the President was not a success. 
However painstaking we may be in explaining our 
true intention, the Bolsheviki have no ear to listen 
to such explanations, but have set their minds irre- 
vocably against any form of foreign interference. 
The President said many words stating that the move 
he had taken was not an intervention. But the Bol- 
sheviki looked at it in no other light than that of 
intervention, pure and simple. If we were afraid of 
the opposition of the Bolsheviki — if we were anxious 
not to incur their ill-will, the only rational course we 
should follow would be to stay away from Siberia. 

At the same time, those Russians, who are opposed 
to Bolshevism, have always been favorably disposed 
towards allied armed assistance, call it an intervention 
or any other name. From the beginning there was no 
hope of reconciliation between these moderate Rus- 
sians and the extreme Bolsheviki. For us it was no use 
trying to carry water on both shoulders. The choice 
should have been made in the early spring of 1918, 
when moderate Russians appealed to the entente 
Powers, and especially to Japan, for armed assistance. 
In Siberia Bolshevism has not found so receptive a 
soil as in European Russia. The Siberian Russians 
would have, at any time, welcomed allied interven- 
tion whose purpose was to establish order against 
the destructive activities of the Bolsheviki. If these 
sane-minded, plain people of Siberia must be helped 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 83 

at all, America and Japan should have agreed upon 
a policy of co-operation in the spring of 1918, when 
Viscount Motono, then Foreign Minister of Japan, 
consulted Washington with that end in view. Had 
the two countries arrived at an agreement at that 
time for immediate action in Siberia, peace and 
order would have been established before the winter 
at least east of Lake Baikal. The Bolsheviki and 
the Germans would have opposed such an action, 
as they always would, but the overwhelming majority 
of Siberian Russians would have heartily welcomed 
it. Had this been done the Czecho-Slovaks, who had 
been proceeding eastward from European Russia, 
would have been greeted by the allied forces before 
the coming of winter in the neighborhood of Irkutsk 
on Lake Baikal. But President Wilson, with all his 
good intentions, delayed that action until the late 
summer. It was about August 10 when the first 
contingent of allied forces landed at Vladivostok and 
was received with great enthusiasm by the natives. 
The same enthusiasm would have been displayed 
had the alHes entered Siberia haK a year sooner. We 
must remember that the rigorous winter of Siberia 
sets in about the middle of October. During the 
long winter months effective mihtary operations are 
well-nigh impossible. The alhed forces, arriving in 
Madivostok in the late summer, had only two months 
in which to "clean" Siberia, before the coming of 
winter. With the Fahrenheit thermometer often reg- 
istering sixty to seventy degrees below zero, it is small 



84 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

wonder that the aUied forces suffered terribly, when 
fighting, through snow and bhzzard, against the 
Bolsheviki who are inured to the rigors of northern 
winter. All such sufferings would have been avoided 
had the allies taken action in the spring of 1918. 

The wisdom of pinning the hopes of Siberia to the 
appearance of the Czecho-Slovaks is also open to 
question. The Czecho-Slovaks were merely "birds 
of passage," passing through Siberia only for the 
purpose of going home or to the western front. 
Their encounters with the Bolsheviki were but inci- 
dental. They never took genuine interest in the 
establishment of order in Siberia. Nor did the Siber- 
ian Russians take great interest in them, for the 
Russians knew that the Czecho-Slovaks were stran- 
gers passing through Russian territories on their 
homeward journey. To hold up such alien elements 
as a nucleus of peace and order in Eastern Russia 
was, to say the least, too far-fetched. 

The allied forces, having entered Siberia too late, 
could not pacify even the territory east of Lake 
Baikal before the winter. And when winter came 
their operations against the Bolsheviki and Germans 
came virtually to a stop. The result is that Amour 
and Trans-Baikal Provinces are still infested with 
disorderly elements, carrying on desultory warfare 
against the allied forces. The annihilation of a Japa- 
nese force of 250 men in early March is an indication 
of the unnecessary suffering which the allied expedi- 
tion is enduring through the winter. 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 85 

From the beginning of their advent in Siberia, the 
Japanese strictly adhered to the spirit of the declara- 
tion issued on August 3 by the Japanese Government, 
disclaiming any desire to interfere with the internal 
affairs of Russia. As if emphasizing that spirit. 
Viscount Uchida, formerly Ambassador to Russia, 
now Foreign Minister, made in the House of Repre- 
sentatives on January 19, the following declaration: 

"Our hearts go out in full sympathy to the Rus- 
sians in their present plight, and we entertain a 
sanguine hope that the efforts now being made by 
patriotic elements in various parts of Russia for the 
establishment of a unified and orderly government 
may be crowned with success. We confidently look 
forward to the rehabilitation of Russia as one of the 
great powers to contribute to the progress and civili- 
zation of the world and we are quite ready to offer 
her all due assistance for this purpose. 

"We have no intention whatever to interfere in 
the internal politics of Russia, still less would our 
policy be influenced by any tendency of taking ad- 
vantage of domestic troubles in Russia to promote 
any selfish aims of territorial or economic aggression." 

That the Japanese forces in Siberia have been true 
to Japan's avowed policy as expressed in the above 
oflficial declaration there is no room to doubt. An 
American business man, George A. Dyer by name, 
who was in the city of Nikolaevsk when the Japanese 
entered there, bears witness to the above statement 
in recounting his personal observations. He says: 



86 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

"Nikolaevsk is a port on the Amur River about 
30 miles from the Okhotsk Sea. I was in the city 
on September 9 when it was taken over by Japanese 
marines. A few days before, 200 of the Germans 
and Magyars had left the town, taking with them 
about 700,000 yen of gold from the Government 
laboratories and several million rubles in bank notes 
from the Government bank. About fifty of the least 
important German-Magyars were left in the city, 
and these were jailed by the Japanese. After hold- 
ing the town for two days, the Japanese turned it 
over to the Russians, and said they did not want to 
interfere in the government in any way. The Jap- 
anese explained that it was their duty simply to keep 
out the German Magyars and Bolsheviki, and to 
guard the city on behalf of the Russians. Fifteen 
hundred Japanese then returned to their gunboats 
in the harbor and about twenty marines were sta- 
tioned in different parts of the city to help prevent 
disorders." 

Japan's announcement, in early January, that 
24,000 of her forces in Siberia would soon be with- 
drawn is another evidence of her faithfulness to the 
avowed purpose of the allied expedition. If the pur- 
pose of that expedition be, as President Wilson says 
it is, to rescue the Czecho-Slovaks, the raison d^etre 
of the presence of allied forces in Siberia has ceased 
to exist, now that the Czecho-Slovaks are no longer 
in danger. But the rescue of the Czecho-Slovaks 
should never have been the chief reason for the 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 87 

allied aid to Siberia. The chief, even sole, reason 
should have been the restoration of order and the 
redeeming of Siberia from the Bolshevik-German 
menace. This is obvious from the protest of the 
Siberian Russians against the Japanese announce- 
ment to withdraw 24,000 of her troops from Siberia. 

One of the mooted questions arising out of allied 
intervention in Siberia was the control of the Siberian 
railway. Certain American interests have had an 
eye upon that railway ever since the late Mr. Harri- 
man proposed, in 1905, to purchase the Manchurian 
railways. Mr. Knox's proposal to "internationalize" 
the railways in Manchuria was understood to be 
another effort in the same direction. When Mr. 
Elihu Root, heading the American mission to Russia, 
went to Petrograd in June, 1917, he was reported to 
have come to a certain understanding with the Ker- 
ensky Government with regard to the control of the 
Siberian railway as a war measure. Perhaps, in pur- 
suance of that understanding. Colonel John F. Stev- 
ens, with some three hundred American railway 
engineers, arrived in the Far East in the fall of 1917. 
But the fall of the Kerensky administration in No- 
vember, to be succeeded by the Bolshevik reign of 
terror, made it impossible for the American railway 
engineers to proceed with the task they had come 
to undertake. 

With the appearance of allied forces in Vladivostok 
in August, 1918, the opportunity for the American 
engineers to carry out their original plans apparently 



88 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

arrived. At that stage, however, the question was 
no longer so simple as in 1917. The intervention 
was undertaken by all the entente Powers, Japan 
furnishing the largest number of soldiers. As a war 
measure, therefore, the control and improvement of 
the Siberian lines could no longer be undertaken by 
the United States alone. The Japanese seemed 
especially sensitive to any plan which would give 
the Americans a preponderating influence in that 
section of the Far East where they would, if they 
could, establish an Asiatic counterpart of President 
Monroe's famous doctrine. Of course they had no 
objection to Americans gaining control of that sec- 
tion of the Siberian railway which lies west of Man- 
churia, but the prospects of foreign control of the 
Russian railways in Manchuria and Amour and 
Maritime provinces were far from pleasing to them. 
The Japanese had long observed how jealous America 
had been, as she still is, in excluding all Japanese 
enterprises from Mexico. They knew that their 
Government, lest it might incur the displeasiu^ of 
the Americans, dared not permit any firm to sell 
arms or advance loans to the Mexican Government, 
however anxious the latter might be to secure such 
assistance from the Japanese. The Government at 
Tokyo has even desisted from issuing passports to 
Japanese subjects interested in Mexican land enter- 
prises or mining projects. At this writing a certain 
senator and representative at Washington are urging 
Congress to adopt a resolution to authorize the Amer- 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 89 

ican Government to purchase Lower California. 
One of the reasons they advanced for this resolution 
is the prevention of Japanese enterprises in that sec- 
tion of Mexico. If America is so anxious to extend 
the application of the Monroe Doctrine so as to ex- 
clude all Japanese enterprises in Mexico, no matter 
how innocent they may be, is it any wonder that the 
Japanese should attempt to apply a similar doctrine 
to those sections of the Far East close to their islands? 

It is, however, highly gratifying that a satisfactory 
agreement has been reached between Japan and 
America on the control of the Siberian railway. On 
January 14, 1919, the State Department at Washing- 
ton was enabled to issue the following statement: 

"The State Department has been advised that an 
understanding has been reached in Tokyo regarding 
the proposed restoration of the efficiency of the Trans- 
Siberian Railway, including the Chinese Eastern 
Railway, and that the proposed plan will be sub- 
mitted to this government through the Japanese 
Ambassador in Washington. 

"In brief, the proposal is that there shall be an 
interaUied committee, under the presidency of a 
Russian, this committee to consist of one represen- 
tative of each of the following nationalities: Russia, 
China, Japan, United States, Great Britain, France 
and Italy. 

"Under this committee there will be established 
two boards — ^First, a technical board on which John 
F. Stevens will serve, and second, a mihtary board." 



90 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

It is reported from Paris that if the United States 
insists upon the recognition of the Monroe Doctrine 
under the League of Nations, Japan will ask the 
privilege of declaring a similar doctrine for the Far 
East. To be frank, the Monroe Doctrine is an anti- 
quated idea of a bygone age. It is incompatible with 
such advanced ideas as those embodied in the coven- 
ant of the League of Nations. It is almost pathetic 
to see Mr. Wilson and other supporters of the League 
striving to explain that the principles of that new 
world organization do not conflict with the Monroe 
Doctrine. Of course, the President "knows better." 
But he also knows that he must trim his sails in order 
to conform to the traditional belief of the American 
people with regard to President Monroe's historic 
doctrine. 

If Japan is to be honest with herself — ^if she is to 
be consistent in accepting the principles of the 
League of Nations, she should not propose to espouse 
any such antiquated provincial doctrine as the Mon- 
roe Doctrine of today, but should propose to abohsh 
all such doctrines. But Japan knows the futility 
of such a move. She knows that America will stand 
as a wall of adamant against any proposal to weaken, 
not to say abolish, the Monroe Doctrine. The only 
alternative for her is to recognize the American prin- 
ciple, requesting at the same time that she be allowed 
to adopt a similar principle in the Far East. 

How far Japan will go in the application of an 
Asiatic Monroe Doctrine must needs depend upon 



J 



JAPAN AND SIBERIA 91 

how far America will go in applying her doctrine. 
When President Monroe declared that doctrine he 
had in niind only the prevention of the establishment 
of foreign political influence in Central and South 
America. In these latter days, however, the advo- 
cates of that doctrine seem to invest it with new 
meanings, permitting its application to be extended 
almost indefinitely. This is especially the case when 
the American publicists want to apply the doctrine 
to Japanese enterprises. It seems as though there 
is absolutely nothing that Japanese can do in Mexico, 
for instance, without treading upon the sensitive toes 
of the advocates of the Monroe Doctrine. If a Jap- 
anese secures a fishing privilege along the Mexican 
Coast, he is held to be encroaching upon that doc- 
trine. If a Japanese gets a mining concession there, 
the same doctrine stands ready to expel him. If a 
handful of Japanese farmers or laborers manage to 
get into Sonora or Lower California, down comes the 
Monroe Doctrine to denounce them. If a Japanese 
business firm sells arms to the Mexican Government, 
that is regarded as a violation of the doctrine. What, 
indeed, would the Monroe Doctrine say if a Japanese 
concern, even unassisted by the Japanese Govern- 
ment, were to propose building a railway in Mexico .^^ 
In short the Monroe Doctrine of today, as apphed 
to the Japanese, is not a political doctrine as it was 
meant to be by President Monroe; it is an economic 
dogma conceived to bar out all Japanese enterprises, 
which are in nature purely economic, and which are 



92 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

the result of the natural growth of the ordinary 
pursuit of individuals, unattended by governmental 
influence. 

And yet, on the other hand, America has more 
than once proposed to build railways and work mines 
in Manchuria. She has no hesitation in recognizing 
the right of her financial interest to advance funds 
to the Chinese government, or build railways, or 
exploit mineral resources in China or Eastern Siberia. 
Japan, of course, has no desire to pick quarrels with 
America on such matters, but she may at least be 
permitted to point out the peculiarities of the Mon- 
roe Doctrine as applied to her citizens in the Western 
hemisphere. 



CHAPTER VI 
JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

The American proposal to annex Lower California — The American 
agitation against Japanese enterprises in Mexico — How Japan faces 
it — A reflection upon American morals — The duty of the State 
Department to investigate the Mexican land project — Definition of 
the Monroe Doctrine — Governor Estaban on the annexation 
propaganda — General Aguirre on the foreign ownership of Mexican 
land — The Magdalena Bay Canard — How it was started — Senator 
Lodge's resolution — The Japanese in Mexico — ^The German prop- 
aganda in Mexico — Japan respects American policy in Mexico. 

At the Peace Congress the Monroe Doctrine has 
been a topic of serious discussion. Objection to the 
League of Nations on the part of many American 
publicists hinged upon the absence, in the draft of 
the Constitution of the League, of any clause clearly 
recognizing the right of the United States to per- 
petuate the Monroe Doctrine under the new world 
regime. 

Meanwhile, certain senators and a section of the 
American press are engaged in a violent agitation 
whose double purpose is to expel all Japanese enter- 
prises from Mexico, and to frighten the American 
pubKc into taking a step toward the annexation of 
those parts of Mexico contiguous to America. 

In the past session of Congress at Washington an 
identical resolution was introduced both in the 



94 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

Senate and in the House, urging the American 
Government to purchase Lower California and the 
northern part of Sonora. Whether by coincidence or 
by prearrangement, a similar resolution was pre- 
sented to the legislature of California. The pro- 
ponents of these resolutions made it plain that one 
of the objects in view was to frustrate Japanese 
designs upon that section of Mexico. 

As if to support and add strength to these resolu- 
tions, certain American newspapers and publicists 
have started a vigorous propaganda, exaggerating 
and misrepresenting the innocent enterprises of a few 
Japanese individuals in Mexico, insignificant both as 
to number and as to financial capacity. The amazing 
contention of these newspapers and publicists is that 
a Japanese interest has purchased, or is about to 
purchase, 800,000 acres of land across the Mexican 
border. Of course they know that this story is 
absolutely baseless, but they want to conjure up a 
Japanese bogie to scare the people into believing that 
the annexation of northern Mexico is the best course 
America should take. 

This agitation, apparently anti-Japanese but really 
designed to further the annexation movement, has 
created in Japan a great deal of amusement. The 
Japanese press in particular has found in it a live 
topic to awaken interest and curiosity in the minds of 
jaded readers. 

Time was when Japan vigorously protested against 
the way American publicists in and out of Congress 



JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 95 

dragged her name into the discussion of Mexican 
questions. She felt that she had been made a scape- 
goat in an unholy political game whose object was to 
advance American interests in Mexico. An innocent 
bystander, Japan could not understand why her 
"big brother" across the ocean should sling mud at 
her, accusing her of schemes of which she had no 
knowledge. 

When, in 1912, Senator Lodge declared that 
Japan had been scheming to establish a naval base in 
Magdalena Bay, the Japanese met the undeserved 
accusation with unfeigned resentment. It set the 
whole nation aflame with wrath, for the Japanese 
were convinced that America was using them as a 
cloak to cover her own selfish designs to acquire new 
interests in Mexico. 

As the charge in one form or another was repeated 
year after year, the Japanese ceased to take it so 
seriously. They have begun to see the humorous 
aspect of the game and deal with it in a sporting 
spirit. They see how the Monroe Doctrine becomes a 
handy tool in the hands of American poHticians, and 
they make humorous comment upon it. They make 
piquant and flippant remarks about the peculiar 
psychology of American pubHcists who fail to see 
their inconsistency in trying, on the one hand, to 
exclude all Japanese enterprises from Mexico, while, 
on the other, they have no scruple in urging the 
extension of American interests in China and Siberia. 
Isn't it odd, the Japanese would ask in perfectly good 



yO JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

humor, that those apostles of the Monroe Doctrine 
across the water could blandly and with no feeling of 
embarrassment advise their government to finance 
the Chinese Government, build railroads in China., 
purchase Manchurian railways, control the Philip- 
pines, procure ship yards on the Chinese coast, and 
even assume control of the Siberian railroads? It is 
indeed a very ingenious invention, this Monroe Doc- 
trine of America, they say. 

To the Americans, this is a matter which cannot be 
treated so lightly, for it is a reflection upon their 
moral sensibility. The Japanese are firmly convinced 
that American interests, when scheming to push 
their influence in Mexico, have no scruple in using 
Japan as a tool. Take, for instance, the above- 
mentioned story of the Japanese purchase of 800,000 
acres of Mexican land. In 1917 an American interest 
called the Mexican Land Company, which controlled 
a vast area of land across the border, tried to interest 
a few Japanese in the agricultural development of 
that land. The American interest proposed to lease 
50,000 acres to the Japanese, who were to secure 
labor from Japan to develop the land. The project 
was, from the beginning, destined to fafl, for the 
Japanese Government, fearful of the susceptibilities 
of the American government and people, would 
never issue passports to Japanese laborers intending 
to come to Mexico. Of course, bona fide farming by 
Japanese individuals in any part of Mexico is no 
encroachment upon the Monroe Doctrine, but in 



JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 97 

these days no one knows what the Monroe Doctrine 
may be utilized to accomplish when the Americans 
are determined to expel Japanese enterprises from 
Mexico. With the Japanese Government refusing to 
issue passports to Mexico, the project of the Mex- 
ican Land Company came to naught. But now 
come American newspapers and publicists exploiting 
the dead project for the selfish purpose of pushing 
the annexation movement. 

In view of this spurious propaganda, it seems to 
me proper that the State Department at Washington 
should investigate the matter and issue a clear state- 
ment dispelling all doubt as to Japan's part in the 
Mexican land project. There is nothing of which 
Japan is afraid of investigation and disclosure. It 
is indeed the duty of the State Department to take 
steps to exonerate a friendly, innocent nation from 
all charges that have been brought against it by 
designing interests. 

It is also to be hoped that the world will be given 
a clear definition of the Monroe Doctrine of to-day, 
because it is obvious that this doctrine, as it is applied 
to Japanese enterprises in Mexico, is something totally 
different from what President Monroe meant it to be. 
When, in 1823, Mr. Monroe, in his message to Con- 
gress, enunciated the famous doctrine, he had in view 
the prevention of foreign political influence estab- 
Hshing itseK in the infant republics to the southward. 
At its inception the doctrine was especially directed 
against Spain, which had been courting the assist- 



y» JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

ance of the reactionary Powers of Europe in her 
efforts to win the revolted colonies of South America 
back to her own crown. Consequently, President 
Monroe told the Congress and the world what atti- 
tude he meant to take towards any attempt on the 
part of the European Powers "to extend their sys- 
tem to any portion of this hemisphere." He should 
deem such an act, he declared, dangerous to the 
peace and safety of the United States. "With the 
existing colonies or dependencies of any European 
Power, "he said, "we have not interfered and shall 
not interfere. But with the governments who have 
declared their independence, and maintained it, and 
whose independence we have, on great consideration 
and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not 
view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing 
them, or controlling in any other manner their des- 
tiny, by any European Power, in any other light 
than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposi- 
tion toward the United States." 

These words of President Monroe permit of no 
misconstruction. It is plain that the President 
meant his doctrine to be a barrier against the plant- 
ing of foreign governmental or political influence in 
Central and South America. With what bewilder- 
ment he would see the same doctrine misused in 
these later days so as to exclude from Mexico all 
enterprises of Japanese farmers or fisherman! 

If such an interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine 
is permissible and is recognized by the American 



JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 99 

Government, the United States must logically be 
prepared to acquiesce in the application by Japan of 
a similar principle to American enterprises in the 
Far East. It is plainly wrong to expel all Japanese 
enterprises from Mexico, and, at the same time, in- 
sist upon the extension of American interests in those 
parts of the Orient where Japan has vital interests. 

And yet America has no hesitation in proposing 
to control railways, exploit mines, finance govern- 
ments in the countries with which Japan has a rela- 
tionship similar to that of the United States to 
Mexico. 

To come back to the Mexican land project, of 
which we have already spoken. That the American 
agitation for the annexation of Lower California is 
deeply resented by the Mexican statesmen is obvious 
from the statements issued by them. Governor 
Estaban Cantu, of Lower California, in an impas- 
sioned proclamation addressed to "The People and 
Government of the United States," characterizes 
that agitation as "a conspiracy framed by some cit- 
izens of the United States to assail the integrity and 
freedom of a friendly nation." General Amado 
Aguirre, under Secretary of Development and Agri- 
cultiu*e,.is positive that no land, contiguous to Amer- 
ican territory or bordering upon the Pacific, can be, 
and has ever been, sold to foreigners. Li a clear 
statement General Aguirre says: 

"It is absurd to give credit to or take seriously 
the news published that there is imminent an inter- 



100 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

national conflict because of the fact that Japanese 
subjects or companies are arranging to acquire lands 
in Lower California, said to belong to the California 
and Mexican Land Company of Los Angeles. 

"In the first place, the lands, which were given by 
a concession in 1884 to the Mexican Land Company, 
were declared the property of the pre-Constitutional 
Government on April 7, 1917, which action rendered 
void the concession granted to the Mexican Land 
Company. Since then the Government has appointed 
a commission to divide these lands and sell them to 
Mexicans in small lots. 

"Moreover, even though Japanese companies do 
propose to acquire, as is alleged, huge tracts of land 
in Lower California, they cannot be aided by our 
Government, since the Mexican constitution in 
Article XXXVIL, expressly states that no foreigner 
can acquire land in a zone 100 kilometers (approxi- 
mately thirty-three miles) wide from a foreign 
frontier nor in a belt fifty kilometers (seventeen 
miles) wide along the shores of the Pacific Ocean or 
the GuK of Mexico." 

Of numerous canards concerning Japanese schemes 
in Mexico, that of the historic "Magdalena Bay 
incident" has made perhaps the strongest impression 
upon the American public. And yet, when the geo- 
graphical and climatic conditions of Magdalena Bay 
are fully understood, even the most scared will con- 
cede that no nation will ever think of establishing 
a stretegical base at such a place. 



JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 101 

For Magdalena Bay is a spot condemned by nature 
to be a desert beyond reclamation. The bay itself 
is a noble stretch of water, landlocked, placid and 
deep. But the entire region extending for more than 
400 miles along the ocean is absolutely rainless. If 
one were to live there one would have to have fresh 
water carried by ships from Todos Santos at the 
extreme southern tip of the peninsula. The nearest 
point available as a source of water supply, Todos 
Santos, is, nevertheless, 300 miles from Magdalena. 
The geological aspect of the region is forbidding. 
Mr. James H. Wilkins, for many years an explorer 
of the Pacific Coast of Mexico, writing in the San 
Francisco Bulletin, says of the country: 

"I am more or less familiar with all the great 
desert regions of North America — with Death Valley, 
the region around Salton Sea, and the most desolate 
regions of Utah. None of these display the true 
desert conditions so impressively as the territory of 
the Hale concession (Magdalena Bay region). It is 
a weary expanse of rock and sand, glittering under 
a perpetual sun — ^lifeless, treeless, without a blade 
of grass or a plant except the tenacious orchilla or 
an occasional petaya cactus. There is not a drop of 
living water on the tract; only here and there are 
some small, uncertain water holes. The sole inhab- 
itants are a few heartbroken looking lizards that 
gain a sustenance God alone knows how." 

This rainless, barren region, fully 400 miles long 
and 50 miles deep, has, since the seventies, been 



102 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

known as the Hale concession, as a San Francisco 
entrepreneur named Joseph P. Hale once had the 
exclusive concession to gather orchilla, the only 
plant that took a fancy to thrive there, and which 
was valuable in dyeing silks in the days when aniline 
dyes were unknown. But when the coal tar deriv- 
atives replaced the orchilla the concession became 
valueless, and Hale, or his heirs, in 1901 or thereabout 
offered the concession for sale for $150,000, or less 
than three-fourths of a cent an acre. 

This, then, is Magdalena Bay. Certainly not a 
pleasing or promising picture. In the face of a hos- 
tile fleet a garrison at Magdalena would soon perish 
of thirst and hunger. Could any man normally 
intelligent be so quixotic as to make any serious effort 
to set up a naval base or a colony in such a place? 

But I know how the tempest in the teapot started. 
It started from various sources. 

In December, 1910, a Japanese named Yokoyama, 
manager of the Toyo Hogei Kaisha (Oriental Whal- 
ing Company) of Tokyo, secured from the Mexican 
Government a fishing concession along the Pacific 
Coast. The concession was far from exclusive, for 
Americans, Germans, Englishmen and others had 
enjoyed the same privilege. For lack of the neces- 
sary capital, the Oriental Whaling Company has 
failed to utilize the privilege. 

The concession had nothing to do with Magdelena 
Bay, for it covered only the section between Salina 
Cruz and Manzanilo. But it was readily exploited 



JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 103 

by sensation-hunters and by those with their own 
axes to grind. About the same time, that is, in the 
spring of 1912, another Japanese, engaged in fishing 
at Monterey, California, took a trip to Magdalena 
Bay at the invitation of J. S. Blackburn, representa- 
tive of the John Henry Company of New York, 
organized under the laws of Maine for the purpose of 
exploiting the Magdalena Bay region. This com- 
pany, eager to open up Magdalena Bay, ojffered 
alluring terms to a Japanese, Otojiro Noda by name, 
and asked him to start a fishing estabhshment and 
also to bring Japanese settlers there. Noda, escorted 
by Blackburn's agent, went to Lower California, and 
inspected the bay and the surrounding country. He 
reached the conclusion that not until human beings, 
as well as cows and horses, learn to subsist on sand 
and sea water would Magdalena Bay ever be col- 
onized. Neither could he see how the fishing indus- 
try could profitably be established at such a place. 
So nothing resulted from Noda's trip. Noda, one of 
those ne'er-do-wells, trying his hand at everything 
and succeeding in nothing, died almost penniless in 
Sacramento in the spring of 1916. And this was the 
man whom the newspapers presented to the public 
as an emissary of the Mikado's Government. 

While trying to interest Noda in the Magdalena 
Bay scheme, the John Henry Company also ap- 
proached a Japanese steamship company with a 
view to importing Japanese settlers. The coloniza- 
tion plans had been conamunicated to Secretary of 



104 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

the Navy, Mr. George von Meyer, who in turn 
sounded the State Department on the matter- 
Assistant Secretary Mr. Huntington Wilson had, it 
was reported, written to the John Henry Company, 
stating that the plans, as submitted to him, would 
not be objected to by the State Department. But 
approved or vetoed on the part of the State Depart- 
ment, the project had, from the beginning, no hope of 
realization, for the simple reason that the land on 
Magdalena Bay is utterly unsuited to settlement. 

But all this furnished fire enough to heat the tea- 
pot. With due fanning by the yellow journals and 
their dubious allies, the fire soon became hot enough 
to cause a tempest in the pot. The result was the 
solemn and formidable resolution offered on Au- 
gust 2, 1912, by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, 
declaring that the United States could not see 
without grave concern the acquisition of any harbor 
on the American continent by a foreign corporation 
"which has such relation to another government, 
not American, as to give that country practical 
control for military or naval purposes." The more 
recent canard about the Japanese attempt to estab» 
lish a naval base on Turtle Bay and at Panama is 
fashioned from the fantastic material furnished by 
the fairy tale of Magdalena Bay five years ago. 

It is well to emphasize that Japanese emigrants 
have never come to Mexico in any considerable 
numbers. According to the investigation of the 
Japanese legation at Mexico City, there are at this 



JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 105 

writing in the Mexican Republic some 2,000 Jap- 
anese, of whom about 300 are women and children. 
Of 1,700 male adults the majority, say about 800, 
are mining laborers; 400 are farmers and farm 
laborers; 200 are domestic servants, and the remain- 
ing 300 include storekeepers, physicians, carpenters, 
tailors, fishermen and miscellaneous laborers. 

These are the Japanese whom we see often de- 
scribed as 200,000 trained soldiers! We have noted 
that out of the total of 2,000 Japanese, 300 are women 
and children. Of the remaining 1,700 not more than 
10 per cent have had military training. To make 
200,000 trained soldiers out of 1,700 odd Japanese 
would tax the brains of the greatest mathematical 
genius of the world. To some people, however, it is 
nothing difficult; they have performed the feat so 
often that the public is beginning to think that maybe 
after all 1,700 Japanese are numerically equal to 
200,000! 

Much of the apprehension seemingly prevailing 
among the Americans with regard to the Japanese in 
Mexico is, perhaps, due to the insidious German 
propaganda whose object has been to embroil Japan 
and the United States in trouble. Of this propa- 
ganda the letter addressed by Dr. Zimmermann, then 
Foreign Minister of Germany, to Von Eckhardt, the 
German Minister to Mexico, in the spring of 1917, 
was the last straw. In that letter Dr. Zimmermann 
instructed Von Eckhardt to endeavor to bring about 
an alliance between Japan and Mexico, an alliance 



106 



JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 



which would be directed against the United States. 
Of course the German Foreign Minister knew full 
well that Japan would never lend ear to such a 
proposal, and, as a matter of fact, he never ap- 
proached Tokyo on that proposal. His sole object, 
in making an overture to the Mexican Government, 
was to alienate Japan and America, and thus cause 
anxiety and misgiving among the Americans with 
regard to Japan's possible attitude towards Mexico. 

While the chancellory at Berlin was indulging in 
such diplomatic intrigues, the German press, pub- 
licists and writers did their part in creating the 
Japanese bogie in Mexico. From the great mass of 
German propaganda literature of this nature, let 
me quote the following passage penned by Professor 
Ruegalabouger of Heidelberg University: 

"The Japanese glances are wistfully cast across the 
Pacific to America. Whether ethnologically and 
anthropologically tenable or not, for decades the 
most popular theory preached in Japan, particularly 
in the University of Tokyo, is that the Japanese are 
descendants of the old Mexicans, who were sub- 
jugated by the Spaniards. In the recent Mexican 
troubles Japan made untiring efforts to manifest her 
sympathies to the Mexicans, particularly so when 
United States troops occupied Mexican territory 
(Vera Cruz). Japan will make her influence felt in 
Central and South America at the expense of the 
United States." 

Japan has no desire to create serious issues with 



JAPAN AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 107 

America over the Mexican situation. She has had 
more chances than one to "test" the Monroe Doc- 
trine, if she wished, for her subjects have often been 
preyed upon and even murdered by bandit-like 
Mexican troops of one faction or another. Had she 
been bent upon making mischief she could easily 
have found excuse to lodge protests with the Mexican 
Government, such as it was, for the sole purpose of 
embarrassing the Government at Washington. To 
the contrary, Japan has been so fastidiously con- 
siderate of the susceptibilities of the American 
Government and people that the Mikado politely 
refused to extend official reception to Felix Diaz, 
whom the Huerta Government dispatched to Tokyo 
as special envoy in February, 1913. Japan felt 
constrained to take this embarrassing and delicate 
step for fear that official recognition of the Diaz 
mission, at the moment when she was anxiously 
watching the acts of the California legislature which 
had proposed an anti-Japanese land law, and when 
the embers of the Magdalena Bay incident were 
still smoldering, might be far from pleasing to the 
American nation. Japan's highly diplomatic note of 
regret reached Huerta after Diaz had already pro- 
ceeded as far as Vancouver, British Columbia, on his 
way to the Mikado's capital. Virtually stranded 
there, the envoy saved his face by going to Paris. 

It is to be hoped that Japan's solicitude for avoid- 
ing Mexican complications will not fail to receive due 
recognition on the part of the American public. It 



108 



JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 



must also be frankly admitted that the Monroe 
Doctrine, to be logical and convincing, presupposes 
the acceptance, on the part of the American people, 
of certain restrictions upon American enterprises and 
activities in that part of the Orient where Japan has 
vital interest. America enjoys enviable reputation 
for sportsmanship, and we are certain that she will 
not long deviate from the path of fair play in dealing 
with the Japanese in Mexico and in the Far East. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE CHAOS IN CHINA 

Danger to foreigners in China — The North China Daily News on the 
Chinese situation — A British view of China's internal warfare — 
The First and Second Revolutions — The Third Revolution — The 
Fourth Revolution — Dr. Sun Yatsen and General Li Yung-ting — 
The situation in Yun-nan — President Wilson's letter to China's 
new President — Mihtary despotism of the worst type — Military 
governors worse than feudal chiefs — Arbitrary seizure of railways 
by generals — Instances of poUtical blackmail — Japan's move to end 
internal warfare in China. 

To understand the real meaning of Japan's recent 
activities in China, certain knowledge of China's 
existing internal condition is of great importance. 
Obviously Japan has been acting upon the conviction 
that, unless she fortifies her position in those parts' 
of China vital to her own security, the western on- 
slaught upon that coimtry after the war will again 
assume a menacing aspect. Whether or not that 
conviction is based upon the right estimation of the 
\ real situation, we must at least concede that Japan's 
apprehension is genuine. 

During the war we in America heard very little 

about China. Our attention was focussed upon the 

. titanic struggle in Europe, and we were unwilling to 

divert it to the internal affairs of an Oriental nation. 

Only once in a good while did we notice in the press 

109 



110 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

laconic dispatches from Peking reporting a cabinet 
change or the bombardment of foreign vessels by 
Chinese forts, but even such news were sooner for- 
gotten than read. 

Yet while the world paid little attention to China, 
momentous events were taking place in that country. 
They were momentous not in the sense of progress 
or development but in the sense of degeneration and 
disorganization. Though China took no active part 
in the great war, she enjoyed not a day of peace 
during the past eight years. The country was torn 
by internecine warfare, and the innocent people were 
constantly preyed upon by contending factions. A 
republic only in name, China has degenerated into 
the worse form of military despotism. Official cor- 
ruption, proverbial under the dynastic regime, has, 
since the advent of the "new regime,*' become even 
worse. Cabinet members seem to vie with one an- 
other in enriching themselves, while the parliament is 
"^ far from immune from the taint of corrupt practices. 
In the light of what is going on in China even the 
following stricture of the Peking correspondent of 
the London Times seems not too severe: 

"The funniest thing in China to-day is the Parlia- 
ment, one of the main results of the agony through 
which the country has passed. To be more explicit, 
the Parliament has been made to look supremely 
ridiculous by a gigantic swindle engineered by some 
of its members." 

As a symptom of this state of general disintegra- 



THE CHAOS IN CHINA 111 

tion, recent incidents, involving foreign lives and 
property, are highly significant. 

On January 18, 1918, the American gunboat 
Monocacy was fired upon by Chinese troops near 
Yo-chow, a city in Hu-nan province which had 
shortly before been taken by the Southern "rebels." 
This wanton attack resulted in the killing of one 
American and the wounding of two. The grievous 
incident was followed in rapid succession by three 
others, though not quite as serious. In the province 
of Honan an American engineer, engaged in the sur- 
veying of a road for a prospective American railway, 
was captured by bandits and held for ransom for 
several months. At Chi-nan, the capital of Shan- 
tung province, two Americans, employed by the 
American-British Tobacco Company, were abducted 
by outlaws on April 24. In Kiang-suh province two 
American women-missionaries have been carried 
away by brigands. 

Such incidents are in themselves deplorable enough 
but their real significance lies not so much in the 
direct material injury they involve as in the indica- 
tion they afford of the state of anarchy now prevail- 
ing in China. If this unhappy condition is permitted 
to continue much longer, the outside Powers inter- 
ested in China will sooner or later combine their 
influence to establish international supervision over 
that country. 

To bring home to the reader the serious situation 
in China we may quote a few utterances from foreign 



112 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

newspapers published in the Far East. On the occa- 
sion of the Monocacy incident, the North China 
Daily News of Shanghai, admittedly the most influ- 
ential British newspaper in China, had this to say: 

"The American Minister has duly registered his 
protest and asked for compensation for the lives 
lost and damaged. The Waichiaopu (Foreign Office) 
has been filled with regret and has tearfully promised 
all the reparation within its power. And there the 
matter must stand unless the foreign Powers are 
prepared to take action. The question is what action 
it is possible to take. Apparently it is impossible 
to find anybody with authority over the troops sta- 
tioned on the Yangtze. Some of them who do the 
firing are independent Hu-nan forces, amenable 
neither to North or South. Some are troops revolt- 
ing in Hupeh. Some are believed to be rapscallions 
under Hsing Ko-Wu, Some are brigands pure and 
simple. . . 

"The fact of the matter is that when there is no 
Government in a country, and anarchy prevails as 
it does in China, foreigners who go into the interior 
do so at their own risk. The foreign legations con- 
cerned may hold the present and future Governments 
of the country responsible for damage done, but that 
will not stop the attacks. If Peking and Hankow 
and Canton were razed to the ground by foreign 
troops or war vessels, it would not necessarily stop 
the firing on ships on the Yangtze. The problem 
is an elegant one. If it is to solve difficulties of this 



THE CHAOS IN CHINA 113 

sort that first-class Powers maintain expensive dip- 
lomatic missions at Peking, let the foreign ministers 
put their heads together and find the way out." 

Mr. Edward S. Little, one of the leading English 
business men in Shanghai, writing in the Peking 
Daily News and the Peking Daily Times, deplores 
the growing state of disorder, and urges the cessation 
of the internal warfare which has for the past seven 
years harassed the people. As Mr. Little sees it 
such internecine warfare is all the more criminal 
because no one can tell what it is all about. Says 
the writer: 

"Repeated inquiries amongst Chinese fail to bring 
to light any well defined issue in the present disorders. 
All with whom I have spoken state that at present 
it is simply and solely a question of individual struggle 
for power with the personal enjoyment of the plunder 
that naturally follows. It would, therefore, seem 
that the present chaotic condition in China is one 
that cannot be defended on any ground whatsoever. 
A few individuals for their own private gain are 
pushing the country to the verge of ruin." 

And the editor of the Peking Times comes out 
openly for an international concert for the control 
of China, and declares that "winking at Chinese 
poHtical hypocrisy is no help — it is like smuggHng 
opium into an opium refuge." 

Nor are such discouraging views expressed only 
by Englishmen. The Peking correspondent of the 
Japan Advertiser, an American daily newspaper in 



114 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

Tokyo, writing under date of March 12, tells us that 
the situation in China is changing for the worse and 
that "the real quarrel in China is not between north 
and south, nor between democracy and tyranny, 
but between the principal generals and between con- 
flicting elements panting for pelf and power." In a 
tone of hopelessness the writer adds: "Foreign ob- 
servers are utterly disheartened, depressed and dis- 
gusted." 

The absorbing question which overshadows all 
other troubles in China, is the rebellion in the south. 
Ever since the First Revolution of 1911, which 
brought about the downfall of the Manchu dynasty, 
most provinces south of the Yangtse river have been 
in a chronic state of revolt. 

In July, 1913, General Li Lieh-chun, Governor of 
Ejangsi-province, raised the flag of revolt against 
the Yuan Shi-kai administration. In the history of 
the Chinese Republic this is known as the "Second 
Revolution." The movement, however, collapsed 
in September of that year, leaving President Yuan 
a virtual dictator. 

But the country was allowed to enjoy only a 
short respite, for in December, 1915, another upris- 
ing, known as the "Third Revolution," was started 
in Yun-nan, soon to be joined by the neighboring 
provinces. 

The object of the Second and Third Revolutions 
was to check Yuan Shi-kai's imperial designs. As 
such it seemed deserving of sympathy on the part 



THE CHAOS IN CHINA 115 

of all well-wishers of the Chinese Republic. With 
the death of Yuan in January, 1916, the danger of 
China reverting to an imperial regime practically 
ceased. And yet the South was not ready to discard 
the sword and turn to the plough. In the preceding 
five years of intermittent warfare the governors and 
military leaders of the southern provinces seem to 
have acquired such an unalterable habit of fighting 
that they could not stop fighting even when the 
raison d'etre of revolution had disappeared. When 
there is nobody in Peking to fight against, the "lead- 
ers" of the South fight among themselves. That is 
what happened soon after Yuan's death in January, 
1916. When in the summer of 1917, Premier Tuan 
Chi-jui's figure began to loom upon the political 
horizon of Peking, the southern politicians and gener- 
als again buried the hatchet and resumed military 
operations against this "common enemy," declaring 
that Tuan had been one of Yuan Shi-kai's lieuten- 
ants, and that he had no sincere sympathy for repub- 
lican principles. And thus the "Fourth Revolution" 
burst in July, 1917, upon a people which had continu- 
ously been plundered in the name of repubhcanism. 
The "Fourth Revolution," though at first consid- 
ered insignificant in the political circles of Peking 
and even by the diplomatic corps, has steadily grown 
in magnitude, until today six out of eighteen pro- 
vinces of China proper are occupied or controlled by 
the revolutionists. The six provinces are Kwang- 
tung (Canton), Kwang-si, Kwei-chow, Hu-nan, Yun- 



116 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

nan, and Sze-chuan. Engrossed in petty politics 
the politicians at Peking did not consider the south, 
ern situation with the seriousness which it called for, 
until Yo-chow, a strategical point on the Yangtse 
River, fell into the hands of the revolutionists in 
January, 1918. With the fall of Yo-chow, the fate 
of the triplet cities of Hankow, Hang-yang, and Wu- 
chang, the most important commercial and strate- 
gical points on the great river, became somewhat 
precarious. Awakened by this serious turn of events, 
Peking at last dispatched expeditionary forces to the 
Yangtse region. 

That some of the southern leaders are really 
fighting for republican principles we are willing to 
admit. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, for instance, may be sincere 
in his advocacy of republicanism, though there is 
much controversial opinion about it. Yet Dr. Sun 
is no longer the leader of the south. Since last 
summer the revolutionary faction in Canton and 
Kwang-si has been led by General Lu Yung-ting. 
Uneducated, ignorant, a freebooter in his younger 
days, this general knows nothing of republicanism 
and cares less for it. All he is concerned with is his 
personal profit and influence. Inspector General of 
the Two Kwangs, Lu has been aspiring to extend his 
inspectorate to Hu-nan province, which his forces 
have invaded. The only plausible reason for his 
apparent co-operation with Dr. Sun Yat-sen is that 
he believes it to be a convenient means to further 
his selfish ends. 



THE CHAOS IN CHINA 117 

Let US take a glance at the other revolutionary 
center, Yun-nan. General Tang Chi-yao, the 
recognized leader here, is credited by some with 
sincerity and patriotic motives. But there are 
many who question his solicitude for republican 
principles and declare that he is exploiting them for 
the selfish purpose of extending his influence into the 
province of Sze-chuen. Yun-nan, mountainous, 
unproductive, and isolated, is a very poor province. 
Whoever may be its governor is always desirous of 
including in his sphere of influence the province of 
Sze-chuen, which is rich in resources. In the past 
few years Yunnanese forces have invaded Sze- 
chuen three or four times, preying upon innocent 
people as they pass. 

It is neither pleasant nor profitable to question 
one's motives. We may admit that these southern 
leaders are fighting for principles. Yet the fact re- 
mains that in their efforts to further their principles 
they are employing means whose justifiability is 
open to question. When Yuan Shi-kai put an end 
to the repubhc and enthroned himself upon an 
imperial dais, the southern leaders had plausible 
reason for revolting. With Yuan's death the situa- 
tion changed much. Yet the Southern leaders were 
reluctant to stop fighting. To employ armed force 
every time the central government is organized by 
men contrary to their liking is certainly not the right 
way to promote any principle. The outstanding 
fact is that the leaders of China, both North and 



118 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

South, are incapable and unwilling to do teamwork 
much needed for the good of the country. 

This deplorable state of affairs is illustrated by an 
incident which took place at the time of the inaugura- 
tion of the new President of China last October. On 
that auspicious occasion President Wilson, under 
date of October 12, addressed to the Chinese presi- 
dent a letter of congratulations in which he said: 

"On this memorable anniversary when the Chinese 
people unite to commemorate the birth of the Re- 
public of China I desire to send to you on behalf of 
the American people my sincere congratulations 
upon your accession to the Presidency of the Repub- 
lic and my most heartfelt wishes for the future peace 
and prosperity of your country and people. I do 
this with the greatest earnestness not only because of 
the long and strong friendship between our coun- 
tries, but more especially because, in this supreme 
crisis in the history of civilization, China is torn by 
internal dissensions so grave that she must compose 
these before she can fulfil her desire to co-operate 
with her sister nations in their gTeat struggle for the 
future existence of their highest ideals. This is an 
auspicious moment, as you enter upon the duties of 
your high office, for the leaders in China to lay aside 
their differences, and guided by a spirit of pa- 
triotism and self-sacrifice to unite in a determination 
to bring about harmonious co-operation among all 
elements of your great nation so that each may con- 
tribute its best efforts for the good of the whole, and 



THE CHAOS IN CHINA 119 

enable your Republic to reconstitute its national 
unity and assume its rightful place in the councils of 
nations." 

When this letter was received, the Chinese Govern- 
ment published only the first half of the message, 
withholding from the public the last part in which 
President Wilson urged the Chinese leaders to bury 
their differences and unite for the common purpose of 
establishing a stable government. 

I have said that China has degenerated into a 
military despotism of the worst form. This military 
despotism is not centralized in the government at 
Peking, but is practiced by a score of military gov- 
ernors stationed in various provinces. These mili- 
tary governors are none but feudal chiefs, and are, 
in this enlightened age of the twentieth century, 
perpetuating the worst traditions of the mediaeval 
ages. They have no close allegiance to the central 
government beyond the duty of paying the annual 
account of salt, tobacco and liquor taxes, traffic 
revenue, internal customs duty, and a few other 
public revenues. Even this duty some of the military 
governors are unwilling to discharge. Since the 
inauguration of the "republican" regime, many 
governors, on one pretext or another, have refused 
to contribute apportioned funds to the central gov- 
ernment. Confronted by such recalcitrant governors, 
the government at Peking has no power to enforce 
order. 

The main function of military governors is to 



120 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

amass fortune at the expense of the state and of the 
people, and to satisfy their vanity by maintaining 
large armies which are employed mainly for the 
purpose of looting and plundering. Their chief 
interest lies in fortifying themselves in the respective 
provinces where they are stationed. Not only are 
they reluctant to contribute the prescribed sums to 
the national coffers, but they demand of the central 
government such material rewards as they deem due 
them for the military services they claim to have 
rendered. Even foreign loans raised by the Peking 
government are as often as not utilized to quiet the 
clamorous and petulant military functionaries. The 
anachronism of the whole system is beyond the 
imagination of westerners. 

To illustrate the curse of military despotism in 
China, let us describe a few recent incidents. The 
case of General Chan-Hsun, that picturesque pig- 
tailed general who attempted the restoration of the 
Manchu dynasty, is well known. When, in the 
summer of 1917, he wanted to come to Peking with 
his queued troops, he seized and arbitrarily used the 
government railway between Nanking and Tientsin, 
financed by England and Germany. This unfortu- 
nate precedent was followed, in the spring of 1918, by 
General Chang Tso-lin, Military Governor at Muk- 
den. This Manchurian general, who started his 
career as a bandit, took possession of the Mukden- 
Peking railway, financed and superintended by Eng- 
land, to transport his soldiers to Tient-sin. His 



THE CHAOS IN CHINA 121 

pretext in taking this extraordinary course was to 
urge the vacillating President Feng to take a more 
decided stand and speed up military operations 
against the southern revolutionaries, but his real 
motive was to intimidate and bully the Government 
into according him a higher position. The general 
demanded the creation of the post of MiHtary In- 
spector General of the Three Eastern Provinces 
(Manchuria) and his own appointment to that post. 
"Inspector General" seems to be the title favored 
by many military generals who think themselves 
powerful enough to exact additional power and 
money from the Central Government. In 1917 
General Lu Yung-ting, who has risen to prominence 
from the unsavory class of free booters, wrested from 
the Peking Government the high-sounding title and 
remunerative post of "Inspector-General of the 
Two Kwangs." Even more notorious a case of 
political blackmail is the exaction by General Lung 
Chi-kong of the profitable position of Inspector 
General of Mines of the Two Kwangs. A lieutenant 
of the late President Yuan Shi-kai, General Lung, was 
sent to Canton by the deceased President in 1915 
with instructions to suppress revolutionary activities 
there. When the Third Revolution came to an end 
by the sudden death of Yuan Shi-kai, the new ad- 
ministration at Peking desired to remove General 
Limg from Canton. But Lung had a formidable 
army which he threatened to employ in a manner by 
no means agreeable to Peking, should the central 



122 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

government deprive him of oflScial honors. So 
Peking sought solution for the difficulty in the usual 
expedient, creating for the general the remunerative 
post of Inspector General of Mines in the Two 
Kwangs. Not satisfied with this, the general took 
his army to Hai-nan Island off Canton, where he has 
since been firmly entrenched, collecting taxes at his 
will and expending the money thus raised as he 
pleases. 

Early in 1918 a most glaring case of political 
blackmail was reported from Peking. When Yo- 
chow was captured by the Southern rebels in Jan- 
uary, the central Government sent General Feng 
Yu-hsiang to the South, entrusting him to combat the 
revolutionary forces on the Yangtse. The general 
started on his way, but when he arrived in Chi-chow 
on the Yangtse he refused, no one knows for what 
reasons, to proceed any further. On the other hand, 
he sent Peking telegram after telegram, all couched in 
dictatorial terms, urging the immediate suspension of 
hostilities between the North and the South. In a 
most arbitrary manner he detained six steamers of 
the China Merchant Navigation Company, exacted 
money from the revenue collecting offices in the 
neighborhood of Chi-chow, and commandeered 
$70,000 from the Salt Transportation Office and the 
Central Tax Office. And this is a general who had 
been very much admired by foreigners because of his 
espousal of Christianity! 

The significance of all these stories lies in the 



THE CHAOS IN CHINA 123 

utter helplessness of Peking in dealing with refractory 
generals and governors. If the central Government 
fails to accommodate them, they point to the power- 
ful troops under their command, which usually has a 
telling effect. The result is the creation of unneces- 
sary offices, depleting the national treasury already 
heavily taxed. Unless this condition is radically 
altered it is idle to speak of efficient administration 
in China, let alone republican government. 

In the face of all this chaotic state in China the 
question is irresistible, "What will Japan do?" 

It is unthinkable that Japan will sit quiet with 
folded arms and watch the drift of affairs on the 
other side of the Yellow Sea. It is but natural that 
Japan should exercise her influence to put an end to 
China's internal warfare and restore harmony 
between the North and the South. As soon as the 
Hara Cabinet was organized in October, 1918, it 
signffied its intention to act as an intermediary 
between the two factions in China with a view to 
terminating the disastrous strife of the past seven 
years. In the report wired by Chang Chun-Hsiang, 
the Chinese Minister at Tokyo, to the Government 
at Peking, Japan's plan for mediation was outlined 
as follows : 

1. In view of the general situation of the world, 
the Allies should jointly offer their friendly mediation 
to China so as to enable her to bring peace and 
unification within her territories. 

2. Although a recognition of a state of belligerency 



124 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

has not been accorded by the Powers to the Military 
Government at Canton, nevertheless, in order to 
facilitate mediation, the Allied Powers should ap- 
proach the leaders of both North and South China 
simultaneously. 

3. Details of mediation should be drawn up by 
the Allies and submitted to the Chinese leaders 
jointly and simultaneously without the slightest 
intention of interfering in the domestic affairs of 
China so as to avoid suspicion on the part of the 
Chinese people. 

4. The Powers will refrain from lending any 
money for whatever purposes until peace and unity 
have been re-established in China. 

Before Japan arrived at this conclusion, she had 
consulted both the Northern and Southern leaders. 
Dr. Tang Shao-yi, the recognized leader of the South, 
had been in Tokyo for several weeks, conferring with 
the leading statesmen in Japan. To all intents and 
purposes, China was ready to welcome Japanese 
mediation. 

As the result of such efforts the "peace confer- 
ence" of China began its session at Shanghai in 
March. Whether this conference will accomplish 
the purpose for which it was organized we have yet 
to see. 



CHAPTER VIII 
HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 

An interview with the leader of Southern Republicans — His views as to 
why China should not have helped the entente Powers — A mis- 
representation by a Chinese peace envoy — Yuan Shi-kai's imperial 
designs and his war policy — Japan checks Yuan's ambition — Japan 
and America advise China to declare war — Why China delayed the 
declaration of war — Factions fight over the war question — Southern 
republicans oppose the Cabinet's war policy — The war question 
plunges China into a civil war — General Chang restores the Manchu 
dynasty — The fall of General Chang — Southern Republicans still 
oppose the war policy of the Cabinet — The Cabinet declares war 
upon Germany — Liang Chi-chao's exposition of China's internal 
politics — China's motives in entering the war. 

I was in Canton in the summer of 1917, and there 
met a number of prominent Southern secessionists. 
The leader of these men was extremely outspoken. 
He said to me: 

"It is not to the advantage of Asia, especially of 
China and Japan, that this war in Europe should 
end in the crushing defeat of Germany — that the 
entente Powers, which are practically dominated by 
England, should come out victorious from the con- 
flict, because such an eventuality will have the effect 
of tightening the British hold upon Asia in general, 
and upon China in particular. It would be much 
better for us of Asia if the war ended in a draw. 

125 



126 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

"Of course, we have no more love for Germany 
than for England, but from the point of view of 
our national safety, we do not like to see Germany 
beaten so completely that she will cease to be a 
restraining influence upon the British advance in the 
Far East. That is one of the chief reasons why we 
Republicans of the South do not want China to 
declare war upon Germany — ^why we are fighting 
the Peking faction, headed by Premier Tuan Chi-jui, 
which has entered upon the war on the side of the 
entente Powers. 

"From the standpoint of world politics, of broad 
international relations, the course which Japan 
should follow in China at the present juncture is 
clear. Japan should help the Southern Republicans 
with money and arms. Suppose your country lent 
us a few million dollars at once, and sent us a few 
shiploads of arms, — we should have no difficulty in 
defeating the Northern faction. And when we have 
gained a controlling influence on our national poH- 
tics, we shall define our attitude towards the war 
with a view to safeguarding Asia's interest to the 
best advantage. 

"We of the South are the only people in China 
to-day who really understand the complicated inter- 
national relations. The antiquated politicians of 
the North — ^Tuan Chi-jui, Feng Kuo-chang, and the 
rest, know nothing of the world politics of the twen- 
tieth century, and are blindly following the lead of 
England and America. Japan, the recognized leader 



HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 127 

of Asia, must not play the same game and pick the 
white man's chestnut out of the fire. 

"Do you know that every school established in 
China by Europeans and Americans is being utilized 
to incite anti- Japanese feeling among Chinese youths? 
Japan must look out for those schools. Now is the 
time for Japan to come to a clear understanding with 
the right party in China — the party of progressives." 

Of course, the Chinese leader did not express him- 
self in just this language, but his idea was exactly 
as I have set forth. During that summer I was send- 
ing articles from China to newspapers in New York 
and Tokyo, and I was greatly tempted to write an 
account of this interview with the Southern leader, 
knowing that such a "story" would create a sensa- 
tion both in Japan and America. But I held my 
honor higher than my profession, and made up my 
mind never to disclose to the public the thought 
which this Chinese publicist confided to me. True, 
he did not enjoin me not to publish it, but I under- 
stood the spirit in which his words were spoken. 

The name of this outspoken Southern leader is 
familiar to Americans and Europeans. In the United 
States and England especially he has many sympa- 
thizers, admirers, and personal friends. Had I pub- 
lished his views as expressed to me, he would have 
lost all of his Western friends. Moreover, the reputa- 
tion abroad of the Southern republicans would have 
received the severest blow. That was why I thought 
it best to keep them to myself. 



128 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

But the activities of the Chinese delegates at the 
Peace Congress have taken an extraordinary course, 
in the light of which I feel absolved from my seK- 
imposed obligation to shield the above-named Chi- 
nese leader. Charity demands that I still withhold 
his name from the public. I will only say that he is 
the leader of republican leaders, and has been most 
closely identified with the revolutionary movement 
in China from its very inception. 

Dr. C. T. Wang, of the Chinese peace mission, 
who represents the Southern faction, of which the 
above-mentioned publicist is the recognized leader, 
recently declared before a large group of American 
newspaper men in Paris that Japan blocked China's 
way when the latter was eager to join hands with 
the entente Powers. 

The truth is that the very faction, with which Dr. 
Wang is closely identified, never wanted China to 
enter into the war, as the Southern leader's state- 
ment, quoted at the outset of this chapter, eloquently 
testifies. 

To gain a clear understanding of the history of 
China's entrance into the war, we must go back to 
the fall of 1915 when Yuan Shi-kai was favorably 
inclined to the idea of lining up China on the side 
of the entente Powers. Not that he was anxious to 
be of any service to the cause of those Powers. An 
admirer of military dictatorship. Yuan was instinc- 
tively inclined to be friendly towards Germany. 
What Yuan really had in mind in declaring himself 



HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 129 

in favor of the entente Powers was the attainment 
of his ambition to become an emperor. For months 
he had been scheming and laying plans for the reali- 
zation of that ambition. To his great disappointment 
Japan, together with England, France, and Russia, 
stood firmly against the restoration of an imperial 
regime in China, as she knew that the Southern 
republicans would never acquiesce in such a course. 
But the resourceful Yuan, unwilling to give up his 
imperial designs, secretly conferred with England, 
proposing that he would declare war upon Germany 
and drive German interests from China, if the En- 
tente Powers would, in return, support his scheme 
to enthrone himself. England, eager to exterminate 
German influence in China, was favorably disposed 
towards this proposal. But Japan, under the Okuma 
Cabinet which was sympathetic towards the South- 
ern republicans, was unalterably opposed to the 
crowning of Yuan Shi-kai. Had Yuan entertained no 
such ulterior motive as the restoration of an imperial 
regime, Japan, in the fall of 1915, would have joined 
England in advising him to declare war upon the 
Kaiser. It was not because Japan wanted China to 
stay away from the war that she refused to endorse 
Yuan's proposal, but because she did not want to 
see Yuan Shi-kai destroy the infant Republic and 
become the imperial dictator of China. 

With the death of Yuan Shi-kai in June, 1916, the 
danger of China's reverting to an imperial regime 
was no longer a question. This signal change in the 



/ 



130 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

situation naturally brought about a corresponding 
change in the attitude of Japan towards the question 
of Chinese participation in the war. Furthermore, 
America's entrance into the conflict in the spring of 
1917 made it advisable for China to sever diplomatic 
relations with Germany and fall in line with the 
democratic nations of the West. 

Prior to the American declaration of war, that is, 
in October, 1917, the Okuma cabinet, which opposed 
Yuan's entrance into the war, came to an end, and 
was succeeded by the Terauchi Cabinet. The new 
Cabinet entertained no objection to bringing China 
into line with the entente Powers. When America, 
having severed diplomatic relations with Germany 
on February 3, 1917, advised China to follow suit, 
the cabinet at Peking, headed by Tuan Chi-jui, 
consulted Japan as to the course it should follow. 
The Japanese Government expressed itself in favor 
of China's acceptance of the American invitation. 
Thus, on March 14, 1917, the Tuan Chi-jui Cabinet 
announced the termination of diplomatic relations 
between China and Germany. The next question 
was whether China should go a step farther and de- 
clare war upon Germany, as did America on April 7. 
Viscount Motono, the Japanese Foreign Minister, 
speaking in the House of Representatives on June 27, 
announced that he had counselled the Chinese Cabi- 
net to follow the course taken by America. He de- 
clared that China's active participation in the war 
would terminate the insidious machinations which 



HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 131 

the Germans in that country had been conducting 
to the detriment of allied interests. 

And yet China did not declare war until August 
14, 1917. This delay was caused by two reasons. 
First, China was dickering with the entente Powers 
for the reward which she expected to receive from 
them for entering into the war. The price she had 
been asking was the postponement of the payment 
of the Boxer indemnity for five years, and an increase 
in the customs tariff. Japan, England, and the 
United States were wilHng to accept this term, but 
other Powers in the entente group were not ready 
to endorse it. 

The second and more important cause for China's 
undue delay in declaring war upon the Central Powers 
was disagreement among the various factions on the 
war question. As soon as, in fact, even before. 
Premier Tuan Chi-jui decided to follow America's 
suit in early March, a hopeless wrangle began over 
the war question. The Parliament was in turmoil, 
the military governors were divided into opposing 
camps, and even the Cabinet faced the danger of 
disruption. It is no exaggeration to say that the 
war question plunged the country into a civil war, 
for it was soon converted into a tool by which each 
faction conspired to push its own interest. 

In the camp opposing the declaration of the 
war the Southern republicans and their sympathers 
formed the most powerful factor. Urged by these 
so-called progressives President Li Yuan-Hung did 



JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

not endorse Premier Tuan Chi-jui's plan to push the 
country into the war. I need not inquire into the 
ulterior motives which prompted the Southern repub- 
Hcans to take this stand. I only emphasize the ob- 
vious fact that they formed the citadel of the anti- 
war factions. 

To declare war upon Germany, Premier Tuan 
must first of all secure the consent of President Li 
Yuan-Hung, the Cabinet, and ParHament, and to 
that end the adroit soldier-statesman employed all 
means. Presumably upon his suggestion General 
Ni Shih-Chung, military governor of Anhui province, 
with three other generals, came to Peking in the 
early part of May, 1917, and urged upon the Presi- 
dent, the Cabinet, and the members of the House 
the advisability of putting China in line with the 
entente Powers. Meanwhile, Premier Tuan was 
busy entertaining members of Parliament, and es- 
pecially those opposing the war measure. On May 
2, he received at a tea party at least 400 guests, and 
availed himself of the occasion to propagate his ideas 
as to the war question. 

The Premier's toil was crowned with success to 
the extent of obtaining, on May 7, the consent of 
the Cabinet to the declaration of war. But Parlia- 
ment, controlled by repubhcans, remained uncom- 
promising. 

On May 10 a mob of £,000 Chinese, hired or insti- 
gated, as Tuan's opponents presume, by the Premier 
himself, gathered before the House of Representa- 



HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 133 

tives, and by boisterous and even violent demonstra- 
tions demanded the immediate passage of the war bill. 
The legislators were so greatly intimidated that they 
were unable to leave the chamber for nine hours. 

Whether the Premier was really responsible for 
such an unwise agitation is open to question, but 
his opponents were not slow in exploiting the inci- 
dent to the prejudice of his reputation. Indeed he 
became so unpopular among the members of the 
House, that between May 12 and 20 all the members 
of his Cabinet tendered their resignations one after 
the other. 

When the House sat again, on May 19, it adopted 
a motion postponing the discussion of the war bill 
until a new Cabinet was formed. In discussing the 
motion, members emphasized the point that the 
Premier, in assuming responsibihty for the passage 
of the war measure, acted in contravention of the 
Constitution which requires the President, not the 
Premier, to shoulder that responsibility. It was also 
pointed out that even if the House voted for the 
declaration of war against Grermany, there was no 
Cabinet to take up the grave task which must be 
entailed by such a vote. The motion was, at the 
bottom, a vote of want of confidence in Premier Tuan. 

The Premier, still undaunted, pressed President 
Li Yuan-Hung to sign the war measure in defiance 
of the House. This the President declined to do. 
The chagrined Premier, on May 29, tendered his 
resignation and retired to Tientsin. Then the mili- 



134 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

tary governors of the provinces of Anhui, Fengtien, 
Fukien, Chekiang, Chihli, Shantung, and Hupeh, all 
in sympathy with Premier Tuan, declared their in- 
dependence and thus registered their opposition to 
the anti-war President and House. 

Tuan, deprived of the premiership, had no inten- 
tion of letting the controversy end there. On the 
contrary, he took immediate steps towards the estab- 
lishment of a separate government at Tientsin, and 
by June 4 he announced the formation of a new 
Cabinet which would accept his war program. 

Alarmed by this ominous development. President 
Li Yuan-Hung almost made up his mind to retire 
from the presidency. It was at this juncture that 
the American government, through its minister at 
Peking, Dr. Paul Reinsch, addressed to President 
Li a note urging him to remain in power and devote 
his labor to the restoration of order. That was on 
June 7, 1917. 

But the situation had already become so serious 
that the timid President was at his wit's end. Driven 
by desperation, he asked General Chang Hsun, mili- 
tary governor at Hsuchow-fu, to come to Peking and 
employ his good oflfices for the alleviation of the situa- 
tion. To the outsider it is a puzzle that President 
Li should invite such an arch reactionary as Chang 
Hsun to act as mediator between Tuan Chi-jui and 
himseK. An ignorant soldier, Chang had been noto- 
rious for his opposition to Parlia;ment and his adher- 
ence to the Manchu dynasty. 



HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 135 

Mr. Liang Chi-chao, a brilliant writer and former 
Minister of Finance, says, in his recent essay, that 
President Li, in inviting General Chang to Peking, 
acted in accordance with the advice of the Southern 
Republicans who had been opposing the declaration 
of war. I shall later quote from Mr. Liang's article 
at length. Here it may be observed that General 
Chang had been notoriously pro-German, and came 
up to Peking with the intention to frustrate Premier 
Tuan's move to commit China to the cause of the 
entente Powers. 

Accepting President Li's invitation, General Chang, 
with 3,000 of his celebrated pigtailed soldiers, entered 
Peking on June 14 and took immediate steps to 
dissolve the House. It is more than probable that 
the General came to the capital with the secret de- 
sign to depose President Li. 

On July 1 the world was startled by the unexpected 
report that General Chang had seized the govern- 
ment by force and set up a puppet monarch in the 
person of Emperor Hsun-Tung of the defunct Man- 
chu dynasty. The general made himself dictator and 
organized a Cabinet of those politicians who were 
nothing but his tools. He notified provincial gover- 
nors, military and civil, that he had changed the form 
of government with the endorsement of President 
Li. 

This notification was immediately followed by the 
announcement of President Li that he had never re- 
nounced republican principles. But the pressure 



136 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

brought by General Chang to bear upon the Presi- 
dent became so great that the latter had, on July 6, 
to flee from the presidential palace and seek protec- 
tion under the roof of the Japanese legation. 

Meanwhile opposition to the reactionary general 
came to a head. He had counted on the immediate 
support of those military governors who had met at 
Hsuchow-fu a year before and pledged themselves to 
the restoration of the Manchu dynasty. He had failed 
to foresee that none of his "friends" would have him 
in the position of a dictator. All were selfish and 
were competing with one another for the sheer pur- 
pose of self-aggrandizement. The moment Chang 
Hsun's scheme seemed to succeed, all of his former 
friends deserted him and united in an effort to pull 
him down. 

Ex-Premier Tuan Chi-jui, who had entrenched 
himself at Tientsin, naturally became the leader of 
the factions opposing Chang Hsun. Tuan himself 
is a man of dictatorial inclinations and has no partic- 
ular sympathy for republican principles. To curry 
favor with the South, however, he professed to work 
for the restoration of the Republic as opposed to 
the imperialism of Chang Hsun. 

By July 12 Tuan's troops, 2,500 strong, had al- 
ready reached Peking and were bombarding Chang's 
forces encamped on the grounds of the Temple of 
Heaven as well as Chang's residence. Contrary to 
his bombastic proclamations, Chang, at the first 
sound of battle, deserted his troops and fled to the 



HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 137 

Dutch legation. Thus the Manchu regime, restored 
on July 1, came to an end on July 12. 

On July 13 Tuan Chi-jui, victor over Chang, left 
Tientsin and made a triumphal entry into Peking. 
A new Cabinet, with Tuan as Premier, was imme- 
diately organized, and began to take steps toward 
the declaration of war. 

Even at this stage the Southern, and a few of the 
Northern, republicans remained firm against the war 
policy of the Cabinet. On July 16 the leaders of 
these repubHcans announced their intention of in- 
augurating a separate government at Canton. Si- 
multaneously 140 members of the dissolved House 
of Representatives, led by Dr. C. T. Wang (the very 
gentleman who is now in Paris accusing Japan of 
having delayed China's entrance into the war), met 
in Shanghai and pledged themselves to oppose the 
Tuan Cabinet and its war pohcy. On July 22 Ad- 
miral Cheng Pi-Kung of the Chinese navy left Shang- 
hai with his fleet for Canton, where he joined the 
Southern Government set up by Dr. Sun Yatsen. 

In spite of this opposition on the part of the South, 
the Tuan Cabinet at Peking irrevocably cast its lot 
with the entente Powers on August 14, when it de- 
clared war upon Germany and Austria. 

Mr. Liang Chi-Chao, Minister of Finance in the 
Tuan Cabinet, whom I have referred to in a preced- 
ing paragraph, has recently published a series of 
brilHant articles in the native press in Tientsin and 
Shanghai, recounting what may be called an inside 



138 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

story of the circumstances under which China en- 
tered the war. Mr. Liang is not only a brilliant man 
of letters but also a prominent man of affairs. Pro- 
fessor Jeremiah W. Jenks in one of his recent articles 
regards him as the most enlightened and patriotic 
pubHcist in China to-day. Mr. Liang's exposition 
of China's internal politics in connection with the 
war question is, therefore, worthy of careful consid- 
eration. He says: 

"After the termination of the internal dispute in 
China in 1916 and the subsequent death of President 
Yuan Shih-kai, I was staying at my own house in 
Tientsin, desiring to hear no more of Chinese political 
affairs. On the second day after the United States 
severed her diplomatic relations with Germany, I 
received many telegrams from both the Presidential 
Office and the Cabinet at Peking asking me to repair 
to the Capital at once. Immediately on my arrival 
in Peking, I called on Premier Tuan Chi-jui at his 
private residence, and discussed the whole matter 
with him in detail. I urged Premier Tuan to lose 
no time in following the example set by America, 
and I am glad to say now that the Prime Minister 
accepted all my views, and treated me as an intimate 
friend. On account of this, the so-called 'heroes' of 
the people's party, meaning Southern Republicans, 
treated me as their enemy, and all sorts of rumors 
were circulated against me, because at that time 
the dispute between the Presidential Office and the 
Cabinet was very intense, and both sides wanted to 



HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 139 

get my views to support their own opinions in this 
important national affair. 

"When I was in Peking, I received representatives 
of the various foreign Legations and prominent mem- 
bers of the two Houses of Parhament, and I did my 
best to assist Premier Tuan to put through his deci- 
sion. Fortunately the bill, favoring the severance of 
diplomatic relations with the Central Powers, passed 
through Parliament by a majority; but unfortu- 
nately, on account of the continued disputes between 
the Presidential Office and the Cabinet, Tang Shao- 
yi and Kang Yu-wei strongly opposed the bill declar- 
ing war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. This 
caused great amusement to foreigners at that time, 
because the severance of diplomatic relations and 
the declaration of war are practically one thing, 
and can not be treated as separate questions in any 
country. 

"The followers of these so-called 'heroes' of China 
used very offensive language against me, while Mr. 
Kang Yu-wei called me a madman who would be 
executed in Peking after the entry of the German 
Army in the capital of China through Siberia! 

" General Hsu Shu-chen, who was the most trusted 
supporter of Premier Tuan at that moment, also ex- 
pressed his disbelief in the wisdom of China's decla- 
ration of war on Germany; but as Premier Tuan is 
a man of principle and decision, who never wavers 
once he has formed his own policy in state matters, 
he did not lend his ear to Hsu's words. The chief 



140 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

reason of the subsequent great upheaval in Chinese 
poHtics was due chiefly to the fact that on account 
of his honesty and simple-mindedness, President Li 
Yuan-hung was utilized by the members of the Kuo- 
mintang Party (Southern Republicans) in the two 
Houses of Parliament as their tool in opposing the 
policy of the Cabinet. The best weapons used by 
the Kuomintang politicians against the declaration 
of war were that the United States would never dare 
to go to war with Germany, that Russia must sign 
a separate peace with Germany, that the German 
Army would occupy Paris within one month, and 
that England would be starved by German sub- 
marines into capitulation. 

"Just at this time, the Russian Revolution broke 
out, so that those who first favored war with Ger- 
many became so alarmed and frightened that they 
changed their own belief and opposed the war bill. 
Especially was this the attitude of those Kuomintang 
Cabinet Ministers, who quoted many precedents in 
which countries severed diplomatic relations with- 
out declaring war. 

"In the mean time many pamphlets were issued 
by pro-German ofl&cials and others decrying war 
against Germany. These pro-Germans, with the 
strong support of many influential military men who 
used President Li Yuan-hung as their tool, most 
strongly opposed the war bill of the Cabinet. Hence 
at one time it seemed as though China's declaration 
of war on Germany would never be carried out, and 



HOW CHINA ENTERED THE WAR 141 

China would remain as a pro-German nation, as the 
actions of the so-called * representatives ' of the Chi- 
nese people in the Parliament clearly indicated." 

The real motives of China, or more accurately, 
the Cabinet at Peking, in joining in the war, was the 
alleviation of financial difficulties. By the declara- 
tion of war, she has repudiated the Boxer indemnity 
of $70,000,000 due Germany and Austria, and has 
secured the privilege to postpone the payment of 
five yearly installments, amounting to some 
$44,000,000, due Russia, England, Japan, Portugal, 
Belgium, Italy, and France, whose respective annual 
claims are as follows: 

Russia $3,547,000 

England 1,377,000 

Japan 946,000 

Portugal 25,000 

Belgium 230,000 

Italy 724,000 

France 1,928,000 



$8,877,000 

In addition China is to secure a substantial raise 
in the customs tariff. China's annual receipts from 
import duties at present amount to some $22,500,000. 
When the revision of the tariff is completed by agree- 
ment among the Powers that sum will increase to 
1,000,000 or more. 

Another material benefit which the war has con- 



142 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

ferred upon China is the exportation of 150,000 
cooHes to France, and to a lesser extent to England. 
These coolies were recruited by French and British 
agents in Shantung, Fukien, and Canton. Each of 
these coolies receive $30 Mexican (or about $15 
American gold) per month. Of that monthly pay- 
ment $20 is handed to the families at home, the 
coolies themselves receiving $10. This has been a 
great blessing to the poverty-stricken provinces 
Inhere the great mass of the inhabitants have never 
had food or shelter or clothes adequate to ensure 
their physical well-being. 



CHAPTER IX 
CHINA'S CONTROVERSY WITH JAPAN 

The attitude of the new Japanese cabinet towards China — Actions of the 
Chinese peace delegation — No secret treaties between Japan and 
China — Kirin forest and mine loan agreement — Premier Tuan's 
explanation of the same agreement — Manchurian railway agree- 
ment — The Japanese Government's statement on the same — Shan- 
tung railway agreement — The Chino-Japanese military agreement — 
The Chinese Government's statement on the same — These agree- 
ments not proper subjects of discussion at the Peace Congress — 
China's extraordinary performances at the Peace Congress — The 
Japanese Premier explains Japan's attitude towards China — Japan 
has no objection to publishing agreements with China — Why not 
also discuss at the Peace Congress China's agreements with other 
nations? — China's real motives in opposing Japan — Discreditable 
tactics of the Chinese peace envoys. 

It is highly regrettable that Japan and China, the 
two foremost powers of the Orient, cannot act more 
harmoniously at the Peace Conference. Either na- 
tion will gain nothing by provoking and picking 
quarrels with the other. 

About the time the armistice was declared in 
France, Japan was making earnest efforts to promote 
better relations with China. The democratic Hara 
Cabinet which succeeded the Terauchi ministry in 
October, 1918, committed itself to a Chinese policy 
signally different from that followed by its prede- 
cessor. As noted in the preceding chapter, the pres- 

143 



144 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

ent cabinet at Tokyo embarked, as soon as it was 
organized, upon a movement to bring a reconciliation 
between the Northern and Southern factions, whose 
continuous fighting for seven years brought nothing 
but misery and degradation upon the innocent masses 
of China. Fearing that loans advanced by Japanese 
interests with good intention might be used by the 
Peking authorities for the continuation of military 
operations against the South, Premier Hara and 
Foreign Minister Uchida declared, on December 19, 
that no further sums should be advanced to China 
until conditions in that country materially improved. 
Not only did the Cabinet reaffirm the intention of 
restoring Kiau-chow to China, but it was considering 
the relinquishment of Japan's share in the Boxer 
indemnity. Furthermore, it promised to render 
assistance to China's endeavor to secure a raise in 
import duties, as a means to increase her national 
revenue. In deference to the desire of the progres- 
sive elements in China for the suppression of opium, 
the Hara Cabinet decided, in January last, to deal 
rigorously with those suspected of smuggling the per- 
nicious drug into China. What is more important, 
it decided to abolish the opium measure practiced 
in the leased territory of Kwan-tung and in Tsingtao 
as well as in Formosa — a measure by which natives 
addicted to opium-smoking were allowed to continue 
the habit by license under certain restrictions. 

The cabinet at Tokyo was prompted to make such 
efforts by a sincere desire to establish Japan's rela- 



china' S CONTROVERSY WITH JAPAN 145 

tions with China upon a sound base. To it, therefore, 
the taunting attitude of the Chinese peace delegation 
at Paris was a great surprise. 

As soon as the Chinese peace envoys arrived in 
America, en route to Paris, they reiterated statements 
which were calculated to create an impression that 
Japan intended permanently to hold Kiau-chow, and 
that she had wrested from China certain treaties and 
agreements which she did not wish to make pubUc. 
In these days when "open diplomacy" has become 
the talk of the world, the Chinese intimation that 
Tokyo had obliged Peking to enter into "secret 
agreements " was highly unpleasant. One is inclined 
to think that the use of the word "secret" was not 
incidental but intentional. Can it be that certain 
Western advisers to the Chinese delegation were bent 
upon the mahcious scheme of casting dark shadows 
upon Japanese diplomacy? In the name of "open di- 
plomacy," the Chinese are practising Machiavelism. 

Fortunately the myth of China's ''secret treaties" 
with Japan has been exploded by China herself. In 
the instructions cabled on February 19 by the Chi- 
nese Foreign Office to the Chinese peace delegation 
at Paris, it is clearly stated that these treaties are 
nothing but the following: 

1. Kirin forest and mine loan agreement. 

2. Draft of agreement for Manchurian-MongoUan 
railway loans. 

3. Draft of agreement for the extension of Shan- 
tung railways. 



146 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

4. Notes exchanged on the co-operative working 
of the Kiau-chow railway. 

5. An agreement for mihtary co-operation. 

6. Treaties and notes made in connection with the 
so-called "twenty-one demands" of 1915. 

The official instructions further state, that besides 
the above agreements and notes, there are no secret 
treaties or agreements of any kind. What agree- 
ments Japan did make she has never considered se- 
cret, for they contain nothing that Japan is ashamed 
to disclose to the world. There is not a single Power 
interested in China which has not entered into com- 
pacts akin to those Japanese agreements. Except 
in the case of the twenty-one demands, Japan never 
so much as attempted to coerce China. Even in 
that case China signed treaties and notes only after 
Japan made considerable concessions. All those 
treaties and notes are contained in the "white book" 
of the Japanese Foreign Office and are accessible to 
anybody. 

Reserving for later discussion the "twenty-one 
demands," let us first examine the other agreements 
named in the instructions of the Chinese Govern- 
ment to its representatives at the peace conference. 

First, as to the Kirin forest and mine loan agree- 
ment. This agreement was concluded in July, 1918, 
between the Chinese Government under President 
Feng Kuo-chang and a Japanese entrepreneure named 
Nishihara. It was understood at that time that 
China received an advance of $15,000,000 for which 



china's controversy with japan 147 

the Japanese were given a concession to exploit mines 
and forests in Kirin. When the agreement was 
signed, Premier Tuan Chi-jui of the Chinese Govern- 
ment issued this statement: 

"As I am also one of the citizens of the Republic 
of China, and as it is my duty to safeguard the inter- 
ests of the country in my capacity as Prime Minister, 
I can confidently assure you that there is nothing 
harmful in the loan agreement signed with the 
Japanese about the development of forests in North 
Manchuria, otherwise I would never have given 
sanction. On the contrary, I believe that the natives 
of Kirin and Heilungkiang will derive immense 
profits out of the development of the natural re- 
sources of North Manchuria, in view of the fact that 
China has not suflficient capital to develop them her- 
seK. Furthermore, there is nothing in the agreement 
which may be construed as prejudicial to China's 
sovereignty or independence. I would, therefore, 
advise the representatives of Kirin and Heilungkiang 
to return to their respective provinces and explain the 
real condition of affairs to their fellows, and thus 
prevent them from becoming tools of certain ambi- 
tious politicians whose aim is to stir up disputes and 
disturbances to attain their selfish ends." 

In the second place, agreements concerning the 
extension of railways in Manchuria and Shantung 
were never considered secret by the Japanese Govern- 
ment. To this nothing bears testimony more elo- 
quently than the fact that the Terauchi Cabinet 



148 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

issued, on October 1, 1918, a public statement de- 
scribing the nature of those agreements. As trans- 
lated in the Japan Advertiser, an English daily edited 
and published by an American, in Tokyo, this 
important statement reads as follows: 

"First. Four railway loans in Manchuria and 
Mongolia: An agreement was made several years ago 
between the Japanese and the Chinese Government 
to the effect that the latter would borrow the neces- 
sary capital from Japan, in case the so-called five 
railways in Manchuria and Mongolia were to be 
constructed. 

"The work on one of these five railways between 
Szeping-kai and Cheng-kiatun has been started by 
the Chinese Government with capital furnished by 
Japan, while the loans for the remaining four railways 
have been recently agreed upon. These railways are: 

(a) From Taonan-fu to Jehol. 

(b) From Changchun to Taonan-fu. 

(c) From Kirin to Haiyuen via Hai-lung. 

(d) From a point on the Taonanfu-Jehol railways 
to a seaport. 

"These lines total more than one thousand miles, 
and will cost about $75,000,000. The Chinese 
Government is expected to float a gold loan to be 
subscribed entirely by the Japanese Bankers' Syn- 
dicate. The syndicate will furnish $10,000,000 to 
China as an advance loan, forming part of the gold 
loan proper. 

"Second. The Tsinan-fu and the Kaomi Railways 



china's controversy with japan 149 

Loans: As a result of the existing desire on the part 
of the Japanese Government to reach an understand- 
ing with the Chinese Government on the question of 
railways in Shantung Province, the following railway 
loans have been lately agreed upon: 

(a) From Tsinan-fu in Shantung province, to 
Shun-teh in Chihli province. 

(b) From Kaomi in Shantung province, to Hsu- 
chow in Ejangsu province. 

"The amount of $10,000,000 will be furnished to 
the Chinese Government by the Japanese Syndicate 
as an advance loan. In case investigations show that 
these proposed railways will be unprofitable from a 
business point of view, different lines will be sub- 
stituted by agreement of both parties. The proposed 
lines extend over about 460 miles altogether and will 
cost about $35,000,000, to be raised in the same 
manner as the loans for the four railways in Man- 
churia and Mongolia." 

Finally, the military agreement named in the 
instructions to the Chinese peace envoys, was signed 
between Tokyo and Peking in May, 1918. It was 
entered into with a view to forestalling the German 
penetration of the Far East, which, due to the 
collapse of Russia, seemed then imminent. For 
strategical reasons this agreement was kept secret, 
but its substance was reported to be as follows: 

1. Japan and China form a defensive alliance 
against the menace of the peace of the Far East for a 
period covering the duration of the war. 



150 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

2. Japan will furnish arms and the sinews of war to 
the Chinese. 

3. Japan will furnish oflicers if or the Chinese 
forces so far as China requests her to do so. 

4. Japan will furnish railroad operators to operate 
portions of the Chinese-Eastern E-ailway. 

5. Japanese troops will cooperate with the Chinese 
in specified parts of Chinese territory to guard 
against the Germans. 

At that time there were rumors that, simulta- 
neously with this military agreement, Japan entered 
into another understanding with China, conferring 
certain advantages or privileges upon the former. 
The Chinese Government denied the existence of 
such an agreement, and issued, through the official 
Chinese News Agency at Peking, the following 
statement : 

"In view of the circulation of false reports, it is 
necessary to inform the Chinese people of the facts of 
the negotiations. Since the conclusion of peace be- 
tween the Russian Maximalists and Germany, the 
fear has existed in Japan and China of an eastward 
intrusion of German influence. On account of the 
propinquity of their territory the governments of 
Japan and China recognized the necessity of a defi- 
nite arrangement for joint defense. This joint de- 
fense concerns military movements in Siberia and 
Manchuria, and has no reference to other matters. 
The scheme will become null and void with the 
termination of the war. 



w 



china's controversy with japan 151 

"On the other hand, the convention will not 
be enforced unless the influence of the enemy ac- 
tually penetrates Siberia. It is not a treaty, but 
an entente, which will become a scrap of paper 
if there is no enemy menace. The sole reason for the 
non-publication of its contents is the preservation 
of the secret from the enemy. The convention does 
not involve the loss of sovereign territorial rights and 
Japan gains no privileges." 

I have described the nature and scope of the so- 
called "secret treaties," much advertised by the 
Chinese peace envoys or their Western tutors. 
Japan, of course, had no objection to making them 
pubHc. In her judgment, however, the agreements 
concerning railways in Manchuria and Shantung, and 
mining and forest concessions in Kirin have no con- 
nection with the war, and, therefore, are not proper 
subjects of discussion before the Peace Congress. 
Moreover, they concern only China and Japan, 
affecting the interests of no other nation. It must 
also be remembered that these agreements were 
arrived at through a friendly exchange of views 
between the two Governments. Neither side appHed 
pressure upon the other. As a matter of fact the 
Chinese Government was anxious to make such 
agreements, mainly because it had to raise money in 
some way. Naturally the above-named agreements 
were signed by China cheerfully and in good faith. 
True, since the signing of these agreements the 
Cabinet at Peking has changed, and the new ministry 



152 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

consists of men unfriendly to the preceding Premier. 
But China cannot propose to abrogate foreign com- 
pacts upon the simple grounds of cabinet change, 
unless she prefers to follow the dangerous course of 
Bolshevism. No two nations can enter into any 
agreement, if the cabinet of either nation is per- 
mitted, at some unexpected future moment, to pro- 
pose the repudiation of such agreements, simply 
because they were signed by a previous cabinet whose 
policy was different from its own. 

Conceding, however, that these agreements con- 
stituted proper subjects for discussion before the 
Peace Congress, the fact remains that the Chinese 
delegation acted in a discreditable manner. The 
agreements had been entered into between the two 
Governments in good faith and in a friendly spirit, 
and it behooves either side to consult the other in an 
equally friendly spirit, before announcing its inten- 
tion to publish those documents. Instead of ob- 
serving this obvious duty and established diplomatic 
usage, the Chinese peace envoys abruptly announced 
that they would disclose all the "secret" treaties with 
Japan, and would, moreover, demand the return of 
Kiau-chow to China. When Mr. Obata, the Japanese 
minister at Peking, called the attention of the 
Foreign Office of China to this extraordinary course 
followed by the Chinese peace delegation, it was re- 
ported from Washington that his complaint was 
couched in threatening words. It is not for me to 
judge whether Mr. Obata made the indiscreet re- 



china's controversy with japan 153 

marks he is reported to have made on his recent call 
at the Chinese Foreign Office, but I cannot but 
believe that the report emanated from certain 
sources extremely hostile to Japan. I have before 
me a recent issue of the Japan Advertiser, containing a 
statement made by Minister Obata just before he 
left Tokyo for Peking. In that statement he said: 

"Heretofore our countrymen, both diplomats 
and laymen, have manifested singular disregard of 
Chinese susceptibilities. We have said and done 
things which must be highly offensive to the Chinese. 
It is imperative that we should reverse this objec- 
tionable practice and deal with China with due 
deference to her self-respect." 

It is not easy to believe that the man who made 
this statement would speak so arrogantly to the 
Foreign Minister of China as he is reported to have 
spoken. One is inclined to think that there is some- 
where an organized conspiracy whose purpose is to 
misrepresent and discredit Japan and her diplomacy. 

When the American press published reports from 
Peking and Washington to the effect that the Jap- 
anese Minister to China made threatening remarks 
in an attempt to prevent the publication of the 
agreements in question, the liberal elements in the 
Parhament at Tokyo demanded of the Cabinet an 
explanation of the situation. Replying to this 
interpellation. Premier Hara, on February 17, made 
the following statement before the finance com- 
mittee of the House of Representatives: 



154 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

"It is rumored in Peking that the Japanese Gov- 
ernment has appHed pressure upon the Chinese 
Government with a view to hindering the activities 
of the Chinese peace delegation. That this rumor is 
absolutely groundless is clearly shown by the state- 
ment just issued by the Foreign Office at Peking. 
The Japanese Government believes that, if the 
Chinese peace envoys want to publish diplomatic 
documents affecting both nations, it is China's duty 
to conform to the established diplomatic usage which 
requires China to confer with Japan prior to the 
publication of such documents. Consequently, our 
Government, through our Minister to Peking, called 
China's attention to this established custom. We 
have never attempted to oblige the Chinese peace 
delegates to desist from publishing any treaties or 
agreements. We have never tried to prevent them 
from submitting any demands or claims to the Peace 
Congress. To say that Japan threatened or coerced 
China is a sinister perversion of facts. Our policy 
in China has been clearly defined, and we are def- 
initely pledged to uphold that policy. The essence of 
that policy is to bring about a better understanding 
between China and Japan. With that end in view, 
our Government is formulating measures of co-opera- 
tion upon equitable basis. We are willing and ready 
to support and help carry out any claims which 
China is justly and reasonably entitled to advance. 
It is highly regrettable that in certain quarters 
reprehensible efforts are being made for the es- 



china's controversy with japan 155 

trangement of China and Japan, circulating rumors 
which do not contain even the faintest shadow of 
truth. Time will come when the whole truth will be 
known — when the blame will be placed where it 
properly belongs." 

If it is China's intentipn to confess before the 
world that she is incapable of putting her own house 
in order, and that she must have the assistance and 
co-operation of the Powers in formulating her railway 
and financial policy, why should she confine herself to 
the discussion of the innocent agreements with 
Japan, ignoring that she has contracted more im- 
portant railway and loan agreements with other 
Powers? The question is, how far China intends to 
go on this proposition. If she singles out Japan, and 
makes her the sole object of attack, her purpose is 
obviously sinister. Examining the record of China's 
deahngs with foreign governments or concession- 
aires in the past several years, we find the follow- 
ing among the more important agreements already 
made: 

1. Russian-Belgian concession to build railway 
from Ran-chow to Hai-mon — ^August, 1912. 

2. Russo-MongoHan Treaty — ^November, 1912. 

3. Belgium secures silver mining concession in 
Hupeh Province — ^January, 1913. 

4. Russo-Mongolian Loan Agreement — ^June, 1913. 

5. Draft of Chino-British convention concerning 
MongoHa— October, 1913. 

6. France acquires concession to build railways 



156 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

from Yan-nan to Cheng-tu in Sze-chuen Province — 
February, 1914. 

7. The Standard Oil Company acquires concession 
to exploit oil fields in Shen-si Province— February, 
1914. 

8. American interests reported to have acquired a 
naval port on the Fukien Coast — ^February, 1914. 

9. England acquires concession to build railway 
from Nan-king to Shang-sha — ^March, 1914. 

10. England acquires concession to build railway 
from Hsu-chow, Honan Province to Jeng-Yang, 
Hupeh Province — May, 1914. 

11. France acquires exclusive privilege to build 
railways and exploit mines in Kwang-si Province- 
September, 1914. 

12. The Russo-Chinese treaty concerning Mon- 
golia — June, 1915. 

13. American International Corporation acquires 
the privilege to build 1,100 miles of railways in 
China— October, 1916. 

14. American International Corporation acquires 
the right to repair the Grand Canal of China — 
October, 1916. 

15. France forcibly seizes a strip of land at Tient- 
sin — October, 1916. 

16. Chicago Continental Commerical Bank con- 
tracts a loan of $30,000,000 to the Chinese Govern- 
ment — ^November, 1916. 

17. American bankers enter agreement with China 
for a loan of unspecified amount — ^July, 1918. 



china's controversy with japan 157 

Some of these concessions are far more vital than 
those given to the Japanese. It is well known that 

!} England claims the vast Yangtse Valley, measuring 
some 362,000 square miles, as her sphere of influence 
where she does not allow any other nation to build 
railways. It is also a matter of common knowledge 

|; that France regards Yun-nan, Kwan-si, and part of 
Szu-chuan, as her sphere of influence, claiming the 
exclusive right to build railways and exploit mines 
What is China going to do about such claims? If she 
proposes to discuss Japanese railway concessions at 
the Peace Congress, why not also discuss more exten- 
sive concessions granted to other Powers? While 
China's hands were tied by the constant revolution- 
ary uprisings in recent years, Russia and England 
steadily encroached upon Mongolia (1,300,000 square 
miles), and Tibet (500,000 square miles), and yet 
China does not propose to bring this grave matter 
before the Peace Congress. It takes no extraordinary, 
insight to discern that China is actuated by sinister 
motives. 

(What the Chinese peace envoys have been trying 
., to do at the Peace Congress is plain enough. They 
\ want to counteract Japan's growing influence in 
I China by courting and inviting assistance from 
I Western Powers. This is nothing but an application 
of China's traditional diplomatic axiom, known as 
Yuan Chiao Chien Kung, meaning "check your 
neighbor by befriending those who are further from 
you." Not only have the Chinese applied this 



K 



158 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

^xiom to their diplomacy in modern times, but they 
'had for many centuries practiced it among them- 
selves, when their country was divided into small 
states fighting with one another. Since her entrance 
into the comity of nations, China has assiduously 
cultivated the subtle art of setting one power against 
another, thus hoping to save herself from disintegra- 
tion by creating discord among the powers interested 
in her country. Acting upon that principle China 
thinks it best to check Japan's influence by dis- 
crediting her before the world, and by alienating 
British and American sympathy from her. 

Besides contriving to create an impression that 
Japan had exacted secret treaties, the Chinese peace 
delegation has made it a point to intimate that 
Japan is determined to retain Kiau-chow. The 
mission has, all the way from Peking to Paris, strewn 
their path, as it were, with proclamations and an- 
nouncements to the effect that they would insist 
upon the restoration of Kiau-chow to China. There 
was, of course, no need of such pronunciamentos, for 
the Chinese knew full well that Japan intended, 
with all sincerity, to return the territory to China. 
But China had other purposes to serve. She thought 
it shrewd diplomacy to accentuate the impression, 
already existing abroad, that Japan is aggressive and 
is eager to attain the political domination of China. 

For the sake of China's good name, it is highly 
regrettable that her peace envoys, in their zeal to 
discredit Japan, have resorted to tactics which will 



r 



china's controversy with japan 159 

recoil upon their own reputations. The Chinese 
diplomats, upon their arrival in Paris, insinuated that 
the secret treaties, which they intended to publish, 
had been stolen by Japanese agents, while they were 
passing through Japan. What good would it do 
Japan to steal from the Chinese envoys documents 
whose duplicates are securely stored in the vaults of 
the Foreign OflSce of China? No Japanese thinks 
that the Chinese diplomats are so foolish as to carry 
away with them any diplomatic documents without 
leaving their originals or copies with their Govern- 
ment. The treasured documents have, of course, 
been found safe in the bag in which they had been 
placed, but to this later report the press has given 
but scant notice. It is equally regrettable that some 
of China's friends in America should go so far as to 
intimate that the recent murder at Washington of 
three Chinese educational commissioners was the 
work of Japanese agents. Instead of offering such 
gratuitous explanation, they should have advised the 
Chinese in America to get rid of their proverbial 
gunmen and put an end to the century-long tong 
war, whose nature and purpose no one knows but 
they. 



CHAPTER X 
THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 

The Ishii-Lansing understanding — Self-preservation underlying motive 
of Japanese policy in China — Japan anxious to get iron and coal 
from China — Japan's precarious industrial structure — ^Japan's 
interest in the Han Yey Ping Company — To solve her population 
problem Japan must become an industrial nation — The blunder of 
the "twenty-one demands" — The "group five" of those demands — 
The supply of arms to China — Foreign advisers to China — The 
Chino- Japanese treaties of May, 1915 — Transformation of Man- 
churia under Japanese management — Dr. Martin on exterritorial 
rights in China — ^The fall of the Okuma Cabinet due to its failures in 
China — ^The Terauchi Cabinet and China — ^The Hara Cabinet's 
policy in China. 

In entering into various economic agreements with 
China, which we have discussed in the preceding 
chapter, Japan was undoubtedly encouraged by the 
Ishii-Lansing understanding of November, 1917. 
In the memorable notes exchanged between Viscount 
Ishii and Mr. Lansing, we find the following recog- 
nition of principle: 

"The government of the United States and Japan 
recognize that territorial propinquity creates special 
relations between countries, and, consequently, the 
Government of the United States recognizes that 
Japan has special interests in China, particularly 
in the part in which her possessions are contiguous." 

160 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 161 

The understanding was couched in flexible terms 
permitting of various interpretations. But if we may 
guage the official sentiment at Washington through 
the press dispatches from the capital at the time the 
understanding was consummated, the American 
Government was prepared to go a long way towards 
the establishment of the principle that Japan was 
entitled to secure a paramount influence in certain 
sections in China, as long as she does not encroach 
upon the "open door" principle. Japan has special 
interests of a semi-political nature in Shantung, it 
was said in such dispatches, which she wrested from 
Germany, by reason of its vicinity to Port Arthur, 
to Korea, and to the Japanese islands. It was fur- 
ther recognized that the prosperity of the island of 
Formosa and its successful administration by Japan 
is largely dependent upon conditions in the Chinese 
province of Fukien, separated only by a narrow 
strait. Japanese railway concessions in Manchuria 
were likewise regarded as proper objects of special 
Japanese interests, not to detail large private-owned 
Japanese business enterprises in China proper. 

It must be frankly admitted that ever since China 
opened her doors to western nations, her territory /* / 
has been regarded as a "happy hunting ground" by / 

concession-seekers of all, but especially of European, 
countries. Her inefficiency, her impotency, and the 
general disorganization and corruption of her admin- 
istrative system have been such as to invite a verit- 
able universal scramble for concessions. This regret- 



/ 



162 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

table state of things had been prevailing for several 
decades before little Japan awakened and entered 
the Chinese field at the eleventh hour — before she 
became a political and economic factor to be reckoned 
with in the adjustment of Far Eastern affairs. To 
the Japanese, it is certain that, unless they take the 
necessary measures of precaution, the whole province 
'of China will sooner or later be held in the grip of 
Western interests. Of course she could not, even if 
she would, undertake to safeguard all the vast do- 
minion of China, but she must by all means fore- 
stall the establishment of preponderating western 
influence in such sections of that dominion as are 
contiguous or adjacent to her own territories. 

It is, therefore, mainly dictates of self-preserva- 
tion which impelled Japan to enter into the Ishii- 
Lansing agreement, and which urges her to secure 
her position in Manchuria, Shan-tung, and Fukien. 
Had China had a well organized government, cap- 
able of developing her own resources, and fully pre- 
pared to protect her own interests against Western 
onslaught, Japan's policy in those sections would 
have taken a totally different course. 

There is another factor which must be recognized 
in discussing Japanese activities in China. The teem- 
ing millions of Nippon, confined within their own 
narrow precincts, and forbidden, by the mandate 
of western nations, to emigrate to any of the terri- 
tories occupied or controlled by the white races, 
must perforce find a field of activity within their 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 163 

own sphere. With this in view Japan is eager to 
convert herself into a great industrial and commercial, 
nation. K she fails in this attempt, she must even- 
tually perish from congestion, stagnation and in- 
anition. And in order to become a foremost indus- 
trial nation, she must have the essential materials 
of modern industry such as iron and coal. 

To her great disadvantage, Japan has little of 
such materials in her own country. The volume of 
iron ores produced at home is but a fraction of what 
Japan actually consumes. Of coal she has a con- 
siderable output, but none that is available for cok- 
ing purposes. Without coke the steel industry is 
impossible. China is the country to which Japan 
must logically and naturally look for the supply of 
iron ores and coking coal. That is why Japan is 
anxious to secure mining concessions in China, before 
China's mines and collieries, unutilized by herself, 
will be all but mortgaged to Western nations — 
nations which have already secured vast colonies in 
different parts of the world, and which have plenty 
of raw materials and mineral supplies in their own 
territories. 

Japan's output of ores, including that of Korea, 
amounts only to some 324,000 tons, equivalent to 
160,000 tons in pig iron. As against this small out- 
put, Japan consumed in 1917, 1,300,000 tons of steel 
and pig iron. 

Before the war this deficiency was partly supplied 
by steel imported from England and Belgium. When 



164 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

the war cut off this source of supply Japan turned to 
the United States for relief. For three years — ^from 
the fall of 1914 and to the summer of 1917 — ^Japan's 
shipyards and iron works were enabled to work al- 
most entirely with material furnished by steel mills 
in America. But in July, 1917, the United States, 
too, declared an embargo upon steel, and the activi- 
ties of Japanese shipyards and iron works came sud- 
denly to a halt. At that moment Japan had 300,000 
tons of ships in course of construction at various 
yards. The American embargo virtually stopped 
work on all such ships. Never before did Japan 
realize so keenly as on that occasion the precarious 
nature of her industrial structure, depending upon 
foreign countries for the supply of steel. 

The American embargo intensified Japan's na- 
tional desire, long uppermost in the minds of her 
industrial leaders, for the independence of her steel 
industry from foreign mills. That desire soon be- 
came a national slogan. And yet how is Japan to 
translate that slogan into a reality .^^ She has but 
scant supply of ores at home. What she is at pre- 
sent getting from China and Manchuria is far from 
commensurate with her demand. Unless Japan suc- 
ceeds in entering into a satisfactory agreement with 
China for the further development of China's iron 
resources, her industrial structure will never be 
placed upon a secure foundation. 

What iron Japan has been getting from China 
comes almost exclusively from the Tayeh mines on 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 165 

the Yang-tsu river. These mines are owned and 
operated by a Chinese corporation called the Han 
Yeh Ping Company, which also operates the Han 
Yang Iron Works and the Ping Shang coal mines. 
Ever since its establishemnt, in 1898, its finances 
have been in such an unhappy condition that it has 
contracted with the Yokohama Specie Bank of 
Japan various loans totalling $40,000,000. In spite 
of the huge loan it has advanced, the Japanese bank 
has no voice in the management of the business of 
the Han Yeh Ping Company. All it is permitted 
to do is to oversee the expenditures of the company. 

The loan contract now in force stipulates that the 
Chinese company shall supply the Japanese Govern- 
ment Iron Works at Wakamatsu with 8,000,000 tons 
of pig iron and 15,000,000 tons of ore in forty yearly 
installments beginning with 1914. The volume to 
be supplied in one year is not fixed, as it will have to 
vary according to the output at the Tayeh mines 
and at the Han Yang Iron Works. In 1915 the com- 
pany delivered to Japan 110,000 tons of pig iron and 
250,000 tons of ore. This supply, considerable as it 
may seem, falls far short of Japan's actual demand, 
which will soon reach 2,000,000 tons per annum. 

In these conditions can we not find a factor im- 
pelling Japan to seek greater sources of iron and coal 
supply in China, untrammeled by the obstacles of 
China's domestic and foreign politics? Whether 
Japan succeeds in this attempt is not a question of 
aggrandizement, but a question of life or death. 



166 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

With her growing population forbidden to seek oppor- 
tunities in countries where profitable employment 
awaits their toil, with her food product inadequate 
to supply her own need, Japan must perforce be- 
come an industrial country. Surely the Western 
nations, which have agreed among themselves to 
exclude the Japanese from their own territories, will 
not conspire to block Japan's way in that part of 
Eastern Asia where she seeks nothing more than the 
means of self-preservation. 

We have seen in the preceding chapter that eco- 
nomic advantages secured by the Japanese in China, 
especially in Manchuria and Shang-tung, are nothing 
extraordinary — nothing diifferent from, or more than, 
those obtained by other nations in other sections of 
China. As such there is nothing menacing or danger- 
ous about them. Why is it, then, that the Chinese 
envoys should make so much ado about them.^ Why 
is it that the outside world should also view them 
with alarm? 

In the previous chapter I have given some of the 
chief reasons for this peculiar attitude on the part of 
China and the outside world. Here I must note that 
Japan's diplomatic blunders in pressing the celebrated 
"twenty-one demands" upon China in the spring of 
1915 have been a factor, which has, to no small 
extent, been responsible for provoking anti-Japanese 
feeling in China and in the West. Had Japan acted 
more diplomatically and with greater discretion and 
saner judgment, in the spring of 1915, her later move 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 167 

with regard to Manchuria and Shantung would have 
been permitted to pass unchallenged. The present 
hostility towards Japan is mainly the aftermath of 
the bitter controversy created by the twenty-one 
demands, for which the Okuma Cabinet at Tokyo 
was responsible. The Chinese opposition, which 
Japan is facing to-day in the matter of economic 
agreements she has recently secured in Manchuria 
and Shantung, is largely the harvest from the seeds 
she had sown in the twenty-one demands. 

Nothing shows more clearly than the attitude 
assumed by Japan in presenting those demands to 
China that the Sunrise Empire has adopted Western 
vices as much as it has emulated Western virtues. 
Tokyo's diplomacy in the case of the twenty-one 
demands was exactly the diplomacy that has for 
more than haK a century been practiced in China 
by London, by Paris, by Vienna, by Berlin, by St. 
Petersburg. 

Not that those demands were in principle wrong 
and unjustifiable, but because they were pressed 
upon China in utter disregard of the susceptibilities 
of the nation whose friendship she had been profes- 
sing to value. The details of the negotiations that 
followed are too well known to require reiteration 
here, but there are a few points which might still 
be emphasized. 

In the first place, Japan ought to have published 
the contents of the demands simultaneously with 
their presentation to China, and transmitted them 



168 



JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 



at least to the British Foreign OflSce. There was no 
reason why the Japanese diplomat should avoid 
publicity, if he had, as he undoubtedly did, sincere 
confidence in the reasonableness of the demands. 
Instead of taking this sensible course, he urged upon 
President Yuan Shi-kai the observance of strict 
secrecy. Could any one with common sense imagine 
that Yuan would keep silence, when he knew he 
could, through publicity, arouse the sympathy of the 
world in his favor and thus succeed in warding off 
at least some of the demands? 

Even more reprehensible was the overbearing man- 
ner in which the demands were submitted to the 
Chinese President. With no previous warning, with 
no previous exchange of views with the Chinese 
Foreign Department, Japan abruptly brought for- 
ward an apparently formidable set of demands, and 
placed them directly in President Yuan's hands, 
thus ignoring the usual channel and the established 
etiquette of diplomatic presentation. 

When we look at the twenty-one demands in cold 
blood, compare them with concessions and special 
privileges wrested from China by other Powers, and 
consider them in the light of China's decaying con- 
dition, creating an international "battle for conces- 
sions and loans" — when we look at the question in 
this light, we can realize that the twenty-one demands 
had cogent reasons behind them, and that they were 
of no nature to justify the great excitement created 
at the time. 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 169 

The ways of the diplomacy of the old school, no 
matter of what power, are always devious. The 
world would be better off if there were no such thing 
as diplomacy. Had there been no Wilhelmstrasse, 
no Quai d' Orsay, no Downing Street, there would 
have been no Kasumi-ga-seki at Tokyo. In submit- 
ting the twenty-one demands to China in January, 
1915, Japan resorted to the usual methods of dicker- 
ing. The so-called group five was included in the 
demands unquestionably for the purpose of driving 
the best bargain. The evidence of this is found in 
the following instruction which Foreign Minister 
Baron Kato handed to Mr. Eki Hioki, the Japanese 
Minister at Peking, on December 3, 1914, i. e., forty- 
six days before the submission of the demands to 
the Chinese Government: 

"As regards the proposals contained in the fifth 
group, they are presented as the wishes of the Im- 
perial Government. The matters which are dealt 
with under this category are entirely different in 
character from those which are included in the first 
four groups. An adjustment, at this time, of these 
matters, some of which have been pending between 
the two countries, being nevertheless highly desir- 
able for the advancement of the friendly relations 
between Japan and China as well as for safeguard- 
ing their common interests, you are also requested to 
exercise your best efforts to have our wishes carried 
out." 

Even if group five were not "wishes" but real 



^ i 



170 



JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 



"demands" I see no cause for excitement, provided 
they were presented in an unoffensive manner. Take 
for instance, the proposition concerning the supply 
of arms. China's urgent need to-day is not only an 
efficient civil administration but a well organized 
system of defense. In the organization of an effec- 
tive military power the unification of arms is as 
essential as the training of officers and men. Can we 
not understand why Japan expressed her wish for 
the establishment of Chino-Japanese arsenals or the 
purchase of Japanese arms.f^ Japan believes that 
China's military organization, if not guided and re- 
habilitated by her, will eventually be controlled by 
some European nation by no means congenial to her. 
Signs of this unhappy tendency were clearly dis- 
cernible before the outbreak of the European war. 

Again, the employment of foreign advisers is un- 
mistakably one of China's sovereign rights, which 
under normal conditions does not permit of foreign 
interference. But when a nation proves so wayward 
in the management of its own affairs as to jeopardize 
the welfare and safety of its neighbors, it becomes the 
right and duty of the neighbors to urge upon that 
nation such measures as will remove the cause of such 
embarrassment. Did not the United States play an 
important part in the secession of Panama from 
Columbia? Has she not assumed the control of the 
finances and police power of Haiti when Haiti has 
become troublesome to her.^ And are not Americans 
urging their Government to deal rigorously with 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 171 

Mexico? With the Monroe Doctrine firmly estab- 
lished, and endowed with enormous potential power 
to back that doctrine, the United States may remain 
calm with regard to Mexico, while Japan, enjoying 
no such advantage, is extremely restive with regard 
to China. 

To many Japanese it appears obvious that China, 
left to her own resources, will eventually become the 
Turkey of the Far East, if it has not already become 
such. Students of Near Eastern affairs all know what 
a hotbed of plots and intrigues the Turkish capital 
has been in the past half century. Russia, Germany, 
England, France, Austria and Italy all played more ^ 
or less important parts in the great tragi-comedy 
staged for the alien control of the Ottoman Empire.- - ' ' 
In their zeal to push their selfish interests, they 
disregarded all decency in their diplomacy. They 
employed women of dubious character, bribed 
eunuchs, corrupted officials, and spread over the 
whole coimtry a network of espionage. In this 
rivalry for the control of the Sublime Porte Germany, 
just before the war, proved a winner. What is the 
result? Not only did the Turkish Government be- 
come a tool in the hands of Germany, but the Turkish 
army and navy were dominated by the Kaiser's 
officers. The fate of Constantinople is a vivid lesson 
to China and Japan. 

To Americans, unable to imderstand Japan's 
singular position in the Far East, it perhaps makes 
but little difference whether China is dominated by 



172 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

England, Germany, France, Russia or Japan. From 
the Japanese point of view it is different. With the 
history of European diplomacy in the Near and 
Far East before them, the Japanese cannot but 
shudder at thought of the day when China shall be 
held fast in the grip of Western Powers. 

The substance of the Chino-Japanese agreements, 
which were entered into as the result of the twenty- 
one demands, is briefly told. Japan agreed to return 
Kiau-chow to China, provided the Powers would, 
after the war, permit Japan to dispose of it in this 
manner. It was with this end in view that in Feb- 
ruary, 1917, Foreign Minister Motono secured from 
England, France and Italy a promise to allow 
Japan to acquire German possessions in Shantung. 
She considered this step necessary in order to secure 
the right to restore Kiau-chow to China in con- 
formity with the agreement she made with Peking in 
the spring of 1915. 

In eastern Inner Mongolia, Japan, in order to 
offset the Russian domination of Outer Mongolia, 
proposed to establish a foothold. In South Man- 
churia, Japan secured the extension of the lease of 
Port Arthur and of the concession of the South 
Manchuria railway. She also obtained for Japanese 
subjects the privilege to travel, reside and engage in 
agricultural and commercial pursuits in any part of 
South Manchuria. This will greatly facilitate the 
industrial development of Manchuria. With all the 
limitations they had to contend with in the past, the 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 173 

Japanese have already created in Manchuria a vast" 
new industry, the bean industry, benefiting no* 
only the natives of Manchuria but tens of thousands 
of coolies of Shantung province. Where ten years 
ago Manchurian fanners barely eked out a living, 
they are to-day exporting $40,000,000 worth of 
beans and bean-cake. This is entirely due to Jap- 
anese enterprise. Observing this transformation of 
Manchuria, even Mr. Frederick Moore, at times 
openly unfriendly to Japan, had to make the follow- 
ing admission: 

"The Chinese are a backward race, wasting their 
opportunities because of ignorance and the intense 
selfishness which centuries of most wretched in- 
dividual struggling for sustenance has engendered^. 
That China would be materially better off under their 
(Japanese) organization cannot be disputed. Before 
the Japanese came to Manchiiria the people used to 
raise enough soy beans to support life. K they 
raised more there was no means of shipping them, and 
if they made money brigands or oflGicials robbed them 
of the surplus. To-day tens of thousands of coolies 
cross the Gulf of Chihli annually from Shantung 
Province to help harvest the great bean crops which 
go by Japanese railroad and steamship lines to 
Europe and compete there with the products of 
American cotton seed. It would be so, I have no 
doubt, with all China, were the Japanese to assume 
control. The Japanese would profit most, but the 
Chinese would also greatly benefit. The majority of 



174 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

"^ the people (we have Manchuria as an example) would 
-« 4)e glad of the opportunity to make a living where 
they are on the constant verge of starvation to-day. 
A coolie is lucky in China to draw a regular wage of 
three dollars a month; he will even raise a family on 
that income." 

But to return to the Chino-Japanese agreements 
under consideration. With regard to Fukien Prov- 
inde, close to the Japanese island of Formosa, China 
engages not to grant any foreign Power the right to 
build any shipyard, military or naval station. China 
also promises to safeguard the Japanese investment, 
amounting to more than $40,000,000, in the Han- 
yeh-ping Company, and not to contract for it any 
foreign loan other than Japanese. Japan's interests 
in this company have been more fully described in an 
earlier passage in this chapter. 

Finally, one may find an objectionable feature in 
the provision that the Chinese police regulations and 
Chinese taxation measures in Manchuria, to be 
applied to the Japanese, must be approved by the 
Japanese consul. This is, however, an inevitable 
consequence of permitting the Japanese to travel and 
reside in the interior districts of South Manchuria, 
where there is no administrative system to which 
people from civilized countries can entrust the 
security of life and property. I shall let the late 
Dr. W. A. P. Martin, one of the most sympathetic 
critics of China, speak on this question. Says this 
friend of China: 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 175 

"Such exemption is customary in Turkey and 
other Moslem countries, not to say among the 
Negroes of Africa. It was recognized by treaty in 
Japan; and the Japanese, in proportion as they 
advanced in the path of reform, felt galled by an 
exception which fixed on them the stigma of bar- 
barism. When they had proved their right to a 
place in the comity of nations, with good laws 
administered, foreign powers cheerfully consented to 
allow them the exercise of all the prerogatives of 
sovereignty. 

"How does her period of probation compare with 
that of her neighbor? Japan resolved on national 
renovation on Western lines in 1868. China came to 
no such resolution until the collapse of her attempt 
to exterminate the foreigner in 1900. With her the 
age of reform dates from the return of the Court in 
1902 — as compared with Japan four years to thirty! 
Then what a contrast in the animus of the two coun- 
tries! The one characterized by law and order, the 
other by mob violence, unrestrained, if not in- 
stigated, by the authorities! 

"When the north wind tried to compel a traveller 
to take off his cloak, the cloak was wrapped the closer 
and held the tighter. When the sun came out with 
his warm beams, the traveller stripped it off of his 
own accord. 

"The sunrise empire has exemplified the latter 
method; China prefers the former. Is it not to be 
feared that the apparent success of the boycott will 



176 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

encourage her to persist in the policy of the traveler 
in the north wind. She ought to be notified that she 
is on probation, and that the only way to recover the 
exercise of her sovereign rights is to show herself 
worthy of confidence. The Boxer outbreak post- 
poned by many years the withdrawal of the cloak of 
ex-territoriality, and every fresh exhibition of mob 
violence defers that event to a more distant date." 
" We have noted the substance of the Chino- 
fepanese agreements concluded in May, 1915, as the 
consequence of the twenty-one demands. Had the 
Japanese diplomats at the helm been more sagacious 
and far-sighted, they could in time have accomplished 
more than was attained by those demands, without, 
at the same time, provoking such a great furore as 
was witnessed in the spring of 1915. The fall of the 
Okmna Cabinet in October, 1916, was mainly due to 
the failure of its Chinese policy. The Terauchi 
Cabinet, which succeeded the Okuma Cabinet, came 
into power with a promise to create a better under- 
standing with China. Terauchi's Chinese policy was 
indicated in the following statement made before the 
House of Representatives by Foreign Minister 
Viscount Motono, in January, 1917: 

"Why is it that China at times cherishes towards 
us misgivings and a certain animosity? The chief 
cause seems to be the tendency in certain circles of 
our country to interfere in the internal quarrels of 
China. Since the overthrow of the Tsing Dynasty 
and the establishment of the republic, various 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 177 

political parties have been formed in China, and we 
have in Japan people who are in sympathy with one 
or another of these parties. These people have a 
marked propensity to assist the particular party 
which is in sympathy with their own political or 
personal views. I believe that all these persons are 
prompted by perfect good-will, but the consequences 
are deplorable. We have gained nothing but the 
animosity of our neighbors as well as misunderstand- 
ing of our real intentions by other nations. 

"The present Cabinet absolutely repudiates these 
courses. We desire to maintain very cordial relations 
with China. We desire only the gradual accomplish- 
ment of all the reforms which China proposes to make 
for her future development. We shall spare no 
pains to come to her assistance, if she desires it. We 
shall try to let her understand our sincere sentiments, 
and it is for her to decide whether to trust us or not. 
We have no intention of favoring one or another of 
the political parties in China. We desire to keep up 
relations of cordial amity with China herself, but 
not with this or that political party. It is essential 
for us that China should be able to develop in a nor- 
mal manner in the path of progress. What we fear 
most is her disintegration as the result of continued 
internal troubles and disorder. We shall make every 
effort to the end that China may never find herself 
in such a position, for it is essential to us that she 
should maintain her independence and territorial 
integrity." 



178 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

During its tenure of a year and a half, the Terau- 
chi ministry made honest efforts to befriend China. 
And indeed it reasonably succeeded in making friends 
with the Cabinet at Peking which was headed by 
Tuan Chi-jui. But the Tuan Chi-jui Cabinet, recog- 
nized by all foreign Governments as it was, repre- 
sented only one faction against which many other 
factions were pitted. While the Terauchi Cabinet 
was dealing with the Cabinet at Peking on friendly 
terms, the southern faction or factions, which set 
up a semblance of government at Canton, sent many 
emissaries to Tokyo and appealed to Terauchi for 
help. However sympathetic as Terauchi might have 
been, he could not deal with the South, knowing 
that the Cabinet at Peking was the only de facto 
government of China. Whatever may be Terauchi's 
shortcomings, he is a sincere man and has never re- 
sorted to double-dealing. 

In order to maintain friendly relations with the 
de facto Government at Peking, the Terauchi Cabinet 
entered, or induced private interests to enter, into 
agreements advancing loans to Peking which was 
hard pressed for money, and which appealed to 
Terauchi for relief. This was not agreeable to the 
factions opposed to the Chinese Cabinet then in 
power. As long as the same Cabinet held its own, 
with Tuan Chi-jui as its head, Japan's official rela- 
tions with China was apparently amicable. But the 
Tuan Chi-jui Cabinet had to fall in October, 1918, 
and the succeeding Cabinet has been organized by 



THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN CHINA 179 

men not friendly to Tuan Chi-jui. In this Cabinet, 
or more properly factional, change lies one of the 
main reasons for the refractory attitude assumed by 
the Chinese peace envoys towards Japan. 

Almost simultaneously with the fall of the Tuan 
Chi-jui Cabinet at Peking, the Terauchi Cabinet at 
Tokyo was succeeded by a more democratic cabinet 
headed by Takashi Hara, whom the Western press 
calls the "Great Commoner" of Japan. The Hara 
Cabinet, recognizing the failures of its predecessor, 
put an injunction upon the advancement of further 
loans to China, and launched, at the same time, a 
movement to effect a reconciliation between the 
northern and southern factions in China. That was 
the main feature of Japanese policy in China, when 
the curtain rose upon the historic scene of the Peace 
Congress, as we have noted at the outset of Chap- 
ter V. 



CHAPTER XI 
JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 

China's singular proposals at the Peace Congress — Her admission of 
inabilities — China's annual deficit — Financial difficulty main reason 
for her entrance into the war — Official corruption worse under the 
new regime — Examples of corruption — China's foreign indebted- 
ness — Japan's share in the same — Japan's economic loans to China — 
Japan compelled by China to make financial advances — ^Japan's 
present financial policy in China defined by the Foreign Office — ■ 
Wanted: An international supervision of China's finances— Pres- 
ident Wilson advises American bankers to withdraw from China — 
Mr. Wilson reverses that advice — America's new financial poHcy 
in China. 

China occupies a singular position in the Peace 
Congress. Her aims and purpose in joining the great 
concourse of the nations are unique. Not only does 
she seek at the Paris conference to solve such of her 
problems as have arisen directly from the war, but 
she has come there to invoke the assistance of the 
Powers in adjusting some of her internal affairs 
which have no bearing upon the war. The disposal 
of Kiau-chow, the former German territory in China, 
which xhe Japanese captured after military operation 
of some seventy days, is unquestionably a proper 
subject for discussion at the peace table. So are the 
former German railways and mining concessions in 
Shantung Province. But agreements and under- 

180 



JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 181 

standings, which have been made between the Chjr 
nese and Japanese Governments quite independently 
of the war and the Japanese campaign against the 
German territory, are obviously foreign to the scope 
of an international conference whose business is to 
dispose of the problems immediately arising out of 
the great war. Some of these agreements China 
would discuss at the peace conference. In addition, 
the Chinese delegation has signified the intention to 
ask the Powers at the peace table to decide upon a 
plan for China's financial rehabilitation. It would 
also ask them to formulate a policy for providing 
China with railways, concessions for which have 
hitherto been granted to various Powers by the Gov- 
ernment at Peking for the sheer purpose of getting 
money for administrative purposes. In plain lan- 
guage, China, finding herseK in a hopeless muddle, 
lays bare before the world her ills and troubles, and 
implores the Powers to lift her from the throes of 
despondency. 

It is perhaps well that China should so frankly con- 
fess her inabilities, admitting that her affairs, both 
internal and external, require a speedy and general 
liquidation, politically as well as financially. She 
knows that the necessary liquidation cannot be ac-^ 
complished without foreign assistance, and she thinks 
it the part of wisdom to avail herself of the golden^ 
opportunity of the Peace Congress to present her 
story of woes. The Peace Congress, as such, may 
not undertake to seek a remedy for China's internal 



182 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

troubles, but when the League of Nations becomes 
"aS'accompHshed fact, the Powers will, and must, co- 
operate with one another in an effort to put China 
upon her own feet. 

Of China's numerous troubles that which requires 
immediate remedy lies in her chaotic finances. The 
annual expenditure of the central Government totals 
$236,000,000 in round figures, and its revenue 
amounts to only $226,000,000. Here is a clear deficit 
of $10,000,000. How is this deficit made good? Only 
by reckless borrowing. For many years past China 
has been borrowing foreign money right and left, 
offering various taxes or concessions as collateral in 
utter disregard of the ultimate welfare of the country. 
The worst of it is that the funds thus raised have 
never been entirely put in the treasury, for the 
officials who have any part in their control are eager 
to line their own pockets at the expense of the state. 
Even when they are actually put in the national 
coffers, their expenditure is directed by no honest 
desire to rehabilitate the finances of the nation. 

The main reason for China's entrance into the 
war in the summer of 1917 was to seek relief from this 
financial plight. By declaring war upon Germany, 
China could repudiate the remainder of the Boxer 
indemnity due the Central Powers, amounting to 
some $70,000,000. Moreover, she was given the 
privilege of postponing for five years the payment of 
the annual installments of $30,000,000 of the same 
indemnity due the Powers other than Germany and 



JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 183 

Austria. In addition she was promised by the 
entente Powers a substantial raise in import duties, 
which under the existing treaty not only cannot 
exceed five per cent, ad valorem, but are based upon 
the average prices of 1897-1899. Japan, America 
and England are understood to have already agreed 
to the desired raise of import duties. 

With all such advantages as she has gained or will 
gain by entering the war, China's financial outlook is 
as dark as ever, because her trouble lies not merely 
in the lack of cold cash but in the proverbial corrup- 
tion of officialdom. 

In China's present state of official peculation and 
irregularity, one may be justified in wondering 
whether any amount of money will be of any avail 
for the much-needed rehabilitation of her finances. 
When I was in Peking last summer an English news- 
paper correspondent, long resident in China, told 
me that since the inauguration of the so-called re- 
public the corrupt practices among officials have 
become much worse than under the Manchu regime. 
Under the old regime, he said, the tenure of officials 
was comparatively secure, and they did not have to 
think that they must "get rich quick." 

From time immemorial China has had the saying: 
"Even the most honest governor can amass a hun- 
dred thousand dollars in three years" {San nien chmg 
chih-fu shih wan hsuch hua yin) . Under the Manchu 
regime, if an official kept his squeezing practices 
within "reasonable" bounds he did not have to 



184 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

worry himseK about his position. With the advent 
of the republican government all this has changed. 
To-day no cabinet knows how long it is going to 
last. And if a cabinet changes, most functionaries, 
both central and provincial, must also change. 
Consequently everybody is eager to make hay while 
the sun shines. Is it any wonder that in the past few 
years the most flagrant cases of official corruption 
have come to light? 

To illustrate this universal corruption, let us note a 
few notorious examples. 

From distant Yun-nan, the birthplace of the anti- 
monarchist movement, which destroyed Yuan Shi- 
kai, there set forth in the fall of 1916 a band of 
patriots bound for the capital. The party included 
the newly appointed Minister of Justice, seven 
members of the Parliament, a large-headed General 
who had led a brigade in the fight for freedom, and 
secretaries and servants of the above-mentioned 
notabilities. At a certain stage of their journey by 
sea to Shanghai a telegram was sent giving warning 
of their approach and requesting the Customs 
facilities usually accorded to high officials. 

Here it must be observed that the Chinese Customs 
are not controlled by the Central Government at 
Peking, but are in the hands of a body of foreign 
officials who collect the revenue derived from this 
source, pay it into certain designated foreign banks, 
and this money is allotted to pay interest on the 
foreign loans secured on the Customs revenues. 



JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 185 

Under these circumstances the EngHsh and French 
officials of the Customs Service are not, as a rule, 
overawed by the dignity of the Chinese members of 
Parliament, who generally received as even-handed 
treatment as mere plain citizens or foreign mer- 
chants, but, on occasions, even Homer nods. 

Well, on arrival at Shanghai the baggage of the 
party was bowed past the inspecting officers without 
examination, and joyfully removed to a native hotel 
in the International Settlement. There then followed 
a quick distribution of the baggage to the far corners 
of the city. The municipal police, however, arrived 
just in time to catch the last four trunks, and to 
arrest the M. P.'s in charge. These gentlemen 
bitterly opposed the examination of their belongings, 
and swore that the trunks contained nothing but 
official papers. But the foreign policemen, being 
without bowels, forcibly opened the boxes, and found 
them filled to the brim with opium. They obtained 
other evidence, which enabled them to trace twenty 
more trunks to the official residence of the Chinese 
city magistrate. These, being found in an adjacent 
house, were given up, and on examination were also 
found to contain "official papers!" The opium 
seized was valued at $750,000, and there were 
thirty-six trunks missing, believed to contain opium 
worth $1,125,000. 

In 1917, Hsu Shih-ying and Wan Fo-wei, Minister 
and Vice-Minister of Communication respectively, 
were indicted on charges of irregular practices in 



186 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

connection with the purchase of freight cars for the 
Tientsin-Pukow railway. The comical part of this 
case was that the prosecuting officer of the Tientsin 
Court, having been bribed with a substantial sum 
($100,000, it was said), permitted Wan Fo-wei, one 
of the defendants, to flee from China. 

About the time of the above case. Chin Chientao, 
Doctor of Philosophy of Yale University, and then 
Minister of Finance, was arrested on the charge of 
receiving bribes from a certain Chinese organization 
to which he had granted the exclusive privilege of 
handling copper coins. 

In 1914, Hsiung Hsi-ling had to resign his post as 
Prime Minister, as the Parliament impeached him 
for misappropriating antique treasures belonging to 
the Imperial palace at Jehol. 

- In 1911 a politician named Yang-tu secured a loan 
of $150,000 from a foreign firm ostensibly for the 
purpose of reconstructing the city of Hankow which 
had been destroyed in the revolutionary upheaval. 
The strange thing is that the city never got a cent of 
that sum, and no one knows how Mr. Yang disposed 
of it. 

It is extremely unpleasant to note such cases of 
corruption, but the time has come when the world 
must know the truth about China's financial affairs. 
In the face of these painful truths the question is 
irresistible; should the Powers decline to advance 
any more money to China, or if they continue to 
make loans, under what conditions? 



I 



JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 187 

Of late, wild rumors have been afloat as to the 
financial hold which Japan is alleged to have estab- 
lished upon China. If all such rumors were true, 
Japan would soon gain a controlling influence in 
China. The truth is that Japan has merely entered a 
wedge into a field long monopolized by European 
Powers. At the end of 1916 China's long-term 
foreign indebtedness, including the Boxer indem- 
nity, totaled approximately $633,000,000. In addi- 
tion to this, she had short-term debts aggregating 
$36,000,000. Besides these, her railway loans 
amounted to $189,000,000. 

All told, China's outstanding external loans in ■ 
1916 amounted to some $867,000,000. Of this total 
Japan's share was only about $30,000,000, including 
about $10,000,000 of the Boxer indemnity. 

During 1917 and 1918 Japan, under the Terau- X^ 
chi Cabinet, advanced considerable sums. These X 

Japanese loans were not political, but economic ^, 

loans, contracted for the purpose of building rail- 
ways, establishing iron works or developing nat- 
ural resources in Manchuria and Shantung Prov- 
ince. Such enterprises involve an expenditure of 
some $150,000,000, but the advances actually 
made to the Chinese Government do not exceed 
$25,000,000. The loan contracts explicitly provide 
that no part of the loans shall be used for any other 
purpose than those specified therein. But in China's 
present chaotic state of finances, with no able honest 
foreigner to supervise them, there is no knowing how 



/ 



188 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

funds realized by foreign loans will be used once they 
are handed over to Chinese officials. At the time 
Japan advanced these loans, internecine warfare 
was going on between the Northern faction, repre- 
sented by the Tuan Chi-jui cabinet, the de facto 
government at Peking, and the Southern faction 
headed nominally by Dr. Sun Yatsen, but in reality 
by a number of ambitious "leaders" in Canton, 
Yunnan, and Sze-chuan provinces. It is conceivable 
that the de facto Government at Peking, having 
received loans from Japan for economic purposes 
fixed in the contract, misued some of the funds in 
carrying on war against the South. Professor 
James F. Abbott, discussing this pecuhar aspect of 
the Chinese question, makes the following observa- 
tion: 

"It would seem that the constant warfare going on 
in a neighboring state with its attendant disruption of 
normal trade would be a most serious detriment to 
Japan, yet it appears to be a fact that without the 
loans which Japan has been making to China, mil- 
itary activities in that unhappy land would be sadly 
curtailed. For without funds the various military 
governors would be unable long to maintain their 
armies. And in spite of the ostensible purposes for 
which the loans have been raised, the money in 
practically every instance has been squandered in 
the army." 

What Professor Abbott says is true enough, but 
we must sympathize with Japan for her peculiarly 



JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 189 

difficult position in dealing with China. China^^ 
sorely needs money, and she does not care where she 
gets it. Various factions in China — those in power 
at Peking as well as those opposing them — would 
say to Japan: "We want you to lend us money. You 
cannot afford to refuse. K you do not accomodate 
us, we will borrow from some other nation, and that 
would be detrimental to your prestige and influence 
in our country." 

Of course, the Chinese diplomats, past masters in 
etiquette as they understand it, would not talk so 
brusquely, but however gracefully the idea may be 
expressed, the implied threat cannot be overlooked. 
Like the Russian Bolshevik, Chinese diplomats 
would say "Our weakness is our strength." Japan 
feels that she cannot sit quiet under the impending 
danger of having her influence in China undermined 
by the advent of third Powers whom China threatens 
to invite, if Japan fails to comply with her requests 
for money. But that is not the worst Japan has to 
face. K Chinese cabinet changes after Japan handed 
over money, there is no knowing what the new cabi- 
net may do. It may seek to abrogate the contracts 
into which its predecessor entered in good faith. 

It is not, of course, Japan's money alone that has 
been subject to misuse. In 1916 a Chicago bank 
entered into a contract, agreeing to advance 
$30,000,000 to the Yuan Shih-kai Government for 
the specific purpose of reforming the Bank of China. 
Of this total $5,000,000 was handed to Yuan Shi- 



190 



JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 



^ 



kai as the first installment. When this transaction 
was consummated, Eugene Chen, the erratic editor 
of the Peking Gazette, vehemently attacked the deal, 
deploring that "American gold would soon kill Chi- 
nese freedom." To this Chinese editor it was ob- 
vious that the American loan would be used by Yuan 
Shih-kai not for banking reform but for the suppres- 
sion of the republican movement in the South. When 
in the spring of 1917, the Chicago banker went to 
Peking to investigate how the $5,000,000 he had 
advanced in the preceding year had been used, he 
could obtain no satisfactory accounting from the 
Chinese authorities. 

Under the Terauchi cabinet, Japan recognized the 
Government at Peking, as did all other Powers, and 
refused to deal with the Southern factions. It en- 
joined all private interests in Japan not to advance 
any funds to the South. What loans it advanced to 
the authorities at Peking were advanced in good 
faith, making it plain to the Chinese that no part of 
the funds should be used for political purposes. But 
the fact cannot be ignored that the funds were mis- 
used at the hands of the northern factions. Conse- 
quently, the Hara Cabinet, which succeeded the 
Terauchi ministry in September, 1918, recognized 
the necessity of reversing the policy of its prede- 
cessor, and in the middle of December issued, through 
the Foreign Office, the following statement: 

"Mischievous reports of Japanese activities in 
China, more particularly with regard to the grant- 



JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 191 

ing of loans, have for some time past been in circula- 
tion and have imputed to the Japanese government 
intentions which are entirely foreign to it. For 
obvious reasons, the Japanese government cannot 
undertake to discourage financial and economic enter- 
prises of their nationals in China, so long as those 
enterprises are the natural and legitimate outgrowth 
of special relations between the two neighboring and 
friendly nations. 

"Nor is the Japanese government at all receding 
from its readiness to render needed financial assis- 
tance to China, consistently with the terms of all the 
declarations and engagements to which it is a party, 
should the general security and welfare of China call 
for such assistance. 

"At the same time, it fully realizes that loans 
supplied to China, under the existing conditions of 
domestic strife in that country, are liable to create 
misimderstandings on the part of either of the con- 
tending factions and to interfere with the re-establish- 
ment of peace and unity in China, so essential to her 
own interests as well as to the interests of the foreign 
powers. 

"Accordingly, the Japanese government decided 
to withhold such financial assistance to China, as 
is likely, in its opinion, to add to the complications 
of her internal situation, believing that this policy 
will be cordially participated in by all the powers 
interested in China." 

There is no doubt that China must have foreign 



192 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

assistance in the rehabilitation of her financial con- 
ditions. By foreign aid I mean not only the advance 
of money, but also an international supervision of 
the finances of China. However distasteful to China 
it may be, the time has come — ^it indeed came long 
ago — when she must face the situation squarely, and 
frankly admit that her financial affairs cannot be 
reorganized upon a sound basis without some sort 
of international supervision. No amount of funds, 
if entirely left in the hands of native officials, can 
do China any good. In the great task of China's 
financial rehabilitation, therefore, all civilized nations 
must co-operate. Obviously it is too gigantic an 
undertaking for any single nation. Even if an opu- 
lent, resourceful nation like the United States be in a 
position single-handed to undertake the task, China's 
foreign relations have become so sadly complicated 
that other Powers will not acquiesce in such an ar- 
rangement. The best thing that America can do in 
the interest of China would be to become a leading 
member in an international body which must sooner 
or later be organized for the surveillance of China's 
financial affairs. 

Viewed in this light the withdrawal of America 
from the so-called six-power group, organized for 
the purpose of financing the Chinese Government, 
was highly regrettable. Signifying his opposition to 
any scheme which might interfere with China's 
financial autonomy, President Wilson, on March 18, 
1913, issued the following statement: 



JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 193 

"We are informed that at the request of the last ad- 
ministration a certain group of American bankers un- 
dertook to participate in the loan now desired by the 
government of China (approximately $125,000,000). 

"Our government wished American bankers to 
participate along with bankers of other nations be- 
cause it desired that the good will of the United 
States toward China should be exhibited in this prac- 
tical way, that American capital should have access 
to that great country, and that the United States 
should be in a position to share with the other powers 
any political responsibiHties that might be associated 
with the development of the foreign relations of 
China in connection with her industrial and commer- 
cial enterprises. The present administration has 
been asked by this group of bankers whether it 
would also request them to participate in the loan. 

"The representatives of the bankers through whom 
the administration was approached declared that 
they would continue to seek their share of the loan 
imder the proposed agreements, only if expressly 
requested to do so by the government. The admin- 
istration has declined to make such a request, be- 
cause it did not approve the conditions of the loan 
or the impHcations of responsibility on its own part 
which it was plainly told would be involved in the 
request. 

"The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch 
very nearly the administrative independence of China 
itself, and this administration does not feel that it 



194 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

ought, even by implication, to be a party to those 
conditions. The responsibility on its part which 
would be imphed in requesting the bankers to under- 
take the loan might conceivably go the length in 
some unhappy contingency or forcible interference 
in the financial, and even the political affairs of that 
great oriental state, just now awakening to a con- 
sciousness of its power and of its obHgations to its 
people. 

"The conditions include not only the pledging of 
particular taxes — some of them antiquated and 
burdensome — to secure the loan, but also the ad- 
ministration of those taxes by foreign agents. The 
responsibility on the part of our government impHed 
in the encouragement of a loan thus secured and 
administered is plain enough and is obnoxious to the 
principles upon which the government of our people 
rests." 

With all our sincere admiration for the dignified 
attitude assumed by Mr. Wilson, we cannot but 
believe that the principle laid down in the above 
statement will prove impracticable. That it has 
already proved impracticable seems evident from 
the gradual change of attitude on the part of the 
American Government. In plain language, Mr. Wil- 
son has come to understand China a Httle better. 
In the summer of 1918 it was reported that the State 
Department had decided to inaugurate a policy 
which would virtually reverse the principle enun- 
ciated in Mr. Wilson's statement of March, 1913. 



JAPAN AND THE FINANCES OF CHINA 195 

In accordance with this new poHcy, the American 
Government will no longer stand aloof from American 
bankers interested in Chinese loans, but 'will be 
willing to aid in every possible way, and to make 
prompt and vigorous representations, and to take 
every possible step to insure the execution of equita- 
ble contracts made in good faith by American citizens 
in foreign lands." This pohcy was outlined by the 
State Department as follows: 

"First, the formation of a group of American 
bankers to make a loan or loans and to consist of 
representatives from different parts of the country. 

"Second, an assurance on the part of the bankers 
that they will co-operate with the Government and 
follow the policies outlined by the Department of 
State. 

"Third, submission of the names of the banks who 
will compose the group for the approval by the 
Department of State. 

"Fourth, submission of the terms and conditions of 
any loan or loans for approval by the Department of 
State. 

"Fifth, assurances that if the terms and condi- 
tions of the loan are accepted by this Government 
and by the government to which the loan is made, in 
order to encourage and facilitate the free intercourse 
between American citizens and foreign states which 
is mutually advantageous, the Government will be 
willing to aid in every way possible, and to make 
prompt and vigorous representations, and to take 



196 JAPAN AND WORLD PEACE 

every possible step to insure the execution of equita- 
ble contracts made in good faith by citizens in 
foreign lands. 

"It is hoped that the American group will be 
associated with bankers of Great Britain, Japan and 
France. Negotiations are now in progress between 
the Government of the United States and those 
governments which, it is hoped, will result in their 
co-operation and in the participation by the bankers 
of those countries in equal parts in any loan which 
may be made." 

Simultaneously with the publication of the above 
statement, the American Government approved the 
loan of $50,000,000 to China, proposed by a group of 
New York and Chicago bankers. When peace is 
restored, the American Government will not hesitate 
to co-operate with other Powers in the much needed 
financial rehabilitation of China. Without interna- 
tional supervision, China's finances can never be 
straightened out. 



Printed in the United States of America 



